THE WRECK
77
At this announcement Kamala's face fell. "I don't want to go there," she said.
Ramesh, "Would you like to stay at school?'
Kamala. " No, don't send me back to school; the girls there only me questions about you, and they make me shy."
Ramesh. "What do you tell them?"
Kamala. "I don't tell them anything. They used to ask me why you wanted to leave me at school for the holidays. I -" Kamala could not finish the sen- tence. The recollection reopened the wound in her heart.
Ramesh. "Why didn't you tell them that I'm no- body to you?" Kamala glanced impatiently at him out of the corner of her eye. "Don't be silly!" she repeated.
"What on earth am I to do?" Ramesh asked himself. His secret was like a worm in his vitals trying to gnaw its way out, and the process was painful. His mind was distraught with tormenting questions. What had Jogendra told Hemnalini by this time? How had Hemnalini taken the news? How could he explain the true state of affairs to her? How could he bear eternal separation from Hemnalini? But he was too distraught to think out the answers to them.
This much he knew, that his relations to Kamala had become a topic of absorbing interest to his friends and his enemies in Calcutta. His false step in de- scribing Kamala as his wife would inflate the rumours that were already current. Not another day could he remain in the place with her.
His abstraction did not escape Kamala's notice, and she glanced up at him.
"What are you worrying about?" she asked. "If you want to go and live at home, I'll come too."
That the girl should subordinate her own wishes to his was a fresh stab to Ramesh. Again he won-
