Divya heard from the mouths of Chhaya and other maidservants as well as from Dhriti Sharma and the children of the palace the accounts of the festive reception given to Prithusen on his entry into the town. She herself had not gone to the city gate because of a sense of embarrassment at her condition. Her position made her feel miserable. It filled her with a sense of pride that Prithusen had been received in triumph, but the news that he was wounded and suffering made her anxious and uneasy. ‘Had I been married before he left for the front, I would have gone to the city gate in a palanquin in whatever condition I was,’ she said to herself, feeling bitter. ‘I would have put his wounded head on my lap and brought him into the palace.’ That Seero should be by his bedside was a cruel irony. In that state of helplessness, she kept her body well covered, and guarding her secret with all possible care, lost herself in the contemplation of that moment when Prithusen would recover his health and their marriage would be duly solemnized with proper ritual and ceremony.

Divya grew impatient as she waited daily for the old maidservant Vapa to bring some message from the palace of Prestha. A moment came when she could not restrain herself any longer. After sunset, she wrapped herself up well, and taking Chhaya with her, went in a palanquin to the magnate’s residence.

Her heart pounded within her breast as she was ushered along the path leading to Prithusen’s room by the slave-girl. The slave gently pushed back the door leaf. There lay Prithusen, weak and emaciated, his head and shoulders heavily bandaged. Near the sick man’s bed sat Seero, fair-complexioned, her golden-yellow hair falling down her back, and on her head was a coronet of jewels, in the Greek style. With the help of a maidservant, she was preparing a potion for the patient in a vessel which stood on a pedestal before her.

As her eyes fell on Divya, Seero, with the authority of the mistress of the house, gestured her to sit down on a seat near Prithusen’s bed. Then, putting her mouth close to Divya’s ear, she whispered in a barely audible voice, ‘He is not to be disturbed. He is sleeping, and these are the physician’s orders. It is too exhausting for the patient if visitors talk to him.’

From where she sat, Divya could see only Prithusen’s bandaged head and shoulders. He was asleep. To be so near him and yet not be able to utter a word to him or touch him and to have a third person standing as a barrier between them, exasperated Divya. She yearned to take him in her arms. The passage of the last six months vanished from her mind, and the feel of his touch on the night of his departure came back to her. Seero’s presence and her discouraging attitude kept Divya from taking Prithusen in her arms. She looked at him with wide-open eyes and her gaze took in all of him. As her emotions could find no outlet, they flowed out as tears.