With that speech his expression was not pleasant to look upon. But Oman felt a sudden relief. He had won a battle in behalf of the law. Yet, a few moments later, as he shut himself into his room, he felt a new confusion and a new bitterness in his heart; and he repeated over and over to himself these words: “And these—and these—the greatest and the best, know still the struggle, still faint before it, still call on high for the Reason that never comes. Was it so wonderful that I—we—failed?” CHAPTER XV THE RIVER TEMPLE The events of that afternoon, which formed the unpremeditated climax of two years of restraint on the part of both man and woman, threatened consequences that did not actually come. For some time after Oman’s bitter reproach, Bhavani did not go at all to the water-palace. And Mandu wondered and rejoiced. But to Zenaide, these weeks were the most terrible she had ever known. It was probably Oman who kept her from suicide; for, little as Oman could understand her or her passion, she seemed to cling to him, and to him only, in her stress. He felt himself both cowardly and hypocritical when she moaned to him of Bhavani’s sudden hatred of her; but he nevertheless held to his tenets as her one possible safeguard. At times, indeed, when he could see clearly, he felt that these two creatures had been given into his hands; that it was for him to keep them both from a relationship which would, in the end, shatter them morally and mentally. With Zenaide he dealt tenderly, for she showed herself to him in lights of unselfishness unsuspected by any one else. But he never concealed from her the fact that he would himself exert all his power to keep her true feelings from becoming known to the Rajah. And the woman after a time accepted, miserably, his view, and acquiesced in all that he told her about the necessity of constant struggle, constant watchfulness, constant self-restraint.