"Kirpo Devi," returned the Lâlâ, with a grin of concentrated wickedness. "Thou shalt have the bangles, and then thou shall go see the _mem_ first, and to damnation after. Mark my words, 'tis a true saying." For another suggestion of evil had sprung into vision, and he already had a feeler out to seize it. Two days later he sat on the same bed grinning over his own cleverness, yet for all that disconcerted. Kirpo had fled, with her boy and her bangles. That he had expected, but he was hardly prepared to find a clean sweep of all his brass cooking-pots into the bargain. He cursed a little, but on the whole felt satisfied, since his spite against Belle Raby had been gratified and Kirpo got rid of, at the price of a pair of deftly lacquered brass bangles. He grinned still more wickedly at the thought of the latter's face when she found out the trick. As he sat smoking his pipe a man looked in at the door. A curiously evasive, downcast figure in garments so rumpled as to suggest having been tied up in tight bundles for months; as indeed they had been, duly ticketed and put away in the store-rooms of the gaol. "Holy Krishna!" muttered the Lâlâ, while drops of sweat at the thought of the narrow escape oozed to his forehead, "'tis Râmu himself." And Râmu it was, scowling and suspicious. "Where's my house?" he asked after the curtest of greetings. Unfortunately for the truth Shunker Dâs had answered this question in anticipation many times. So he was quite prepared. "Thy house, oh Râmu? If she be not at home, God knoweth whither she hath gone. I sent her here, for safety, seeing that women are uncertain even when ill-looking; but she hath left this security without my consent." His hearer's face darkened still more deeply as he looked about him in a dissatisfied way. "I went straight to Faizapore; they said she was here." He did not add that he had purposely refrained from announcing his remission (for good conduct) in order to see the state of affairs for himself. Shunker meanwhile was mentally offering a cheap but showy oblation to his pet deity for having suggested the abstraction of the brass pots to Kirpo. "I say nothing, Râmu," he replied unctuously; "but this I know, that having placed her here virtuously with an old mother, who is even now engaged in work below, she hath fled, nor stayed her hand from taking things that are not hers. See, I am here without food even, driven to eat it from the bazaar, by reason of her wickedness; but I will call, and the old mother will fetch some; thou must be hungry. Hadst thou sent word, Râmu, the faithful servant should have had a feast from the faithful master." Râmu and he looked at each other steadily for a moment, like two dogs uncertain whether to growl or to be friends. "Fret not because of one woman, Râmu," added his master peacefully. "Hadst thou sent word, she would have been at home doubtless. She is no worse than others."