At the breakfast table next morning she was quieter than usual. When her husband and son had finished discussing the morning’s news, she said, ‘We haven’t heard from Beena for some days.’

‘She must be having a good time. After examinations no one wants to be worried with reading or writing—not even letters,’ answered her son.

The concern on Sabhrai’s faced indicated that she had other things on her mind.

‘You must be imagining she is ill. No one falls ill in the hills,’ assured Buta Singh.

‘Has Madan’s wife joined them in Simla?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know, but I can find out,’ answered Sher Singh.

‘I would like to know.’

Neither father nor son followed the trend of her thoughts. That evening when Sher Singh told her that he had found out from Wazir Chand’s house that Madan’s wife was still with her parents, Sabhrai stated firmly, ‘I should go to Simla.’

‘I asked Wazir Chand myself,’ replied Sher Singh somewhat nonplussed. ‘He said Madan’s wife would rejoin her husband after having her baby which is expected in a month or two.’

After a pause, Sabhrai repeated: ‘I ought to go to Simla. Beena wants me.’

‘Why do you get so bothered and impatient?’ protested her son. ‘Champak is there; so are Sita and Madan. And if there were anything wrong, they would send us a telegram.’

‘No, I will go tonight.’

To such determination there was no answer. It only aroused apprehension: anything that could bother Sabhrai so much was not to be trifled with. Buta Singh waited for his son to volunteer to accompany his mother. Sher Singh did not look up from his plate. ‘All right,’ said Buta Singh at last, ‘I will send one of my orderlies with you.’

Sabhrai reached the house in Simla as the siren boomed across the hills and valleys to announce the middle of the day. She found the doors and windows wide open with no one about. She left the orderly to haggle with the rickshaw coolies and went in. The sitting room had not been swept; the dinner table was littered with the remains of the morning’s breakfast; one tea cup had cigarette stubs floating in a mixture of tea and ash. The next room was obviously her daughter-in-law’s: on the table beside the bed was a photograph of her son. The door of the room beyond that was shut. Sabhrai opened it gently. One bed was empty; her daughter was fast asleep in the other. She had a woollen scarf round her neck and was breathing heavily through her mouth. Her nose was raw and there were marks of dried tears on her cheeks. She had a heavy cold.