"Let her alone; Hari Rām will be his own avenger."
A few months after her husband's banishment she suddenly appeared before Vansie leading her eldest boy by the hand and with a new-born babe slung at her side.
"See," she said proudly, "I have given him life and two sons, and now I will make him so rich that when he comes back he can give of his own to the poor, and need be no longer a Dacoit."
And so her motive became clear to Vansie. She laboured by night and by day to increase her store, living meanwhile poorly, denying herself all save the very necessaries of existence. A hunted look came into her eyes, and as time went on she faded into a mere shadow of her former self; but the wealth increased, and her boys grew, and were finer and handsomer than their fellows.
"My lord, thy servant craves forgiveness; behold, I received 500 rupees for selling thee into captivity. I bring thee 5000 rupees, with bullocks and carts; thou left me with but one son, I bring thee two."
So spake Rajhani, lying prostrate at Hari Rām's feet, as he landed after his long exile. The remembrance of those five years of misery was fresh upon him, the iron had entered into his soul, and he spurned her from him; but a young man touched his arm and called him by his name—
"Are you blind, Hari Rām?" he said; "surely she has done wisely. She has laboured for you in love and patience; you must see she betrayed you for very love, to save your life."
The Hindu stood as one dazed; through the mist of superstition and anger a faint gleam of something better crept into his soul. He had himself thought to redress wrongs, had failed, and had suffered. He turned and looked fixedly first at the woman still lying prostrate before him, then at Gilbert Lindsay, who had spoken.