Hilka, who had been sitting with her back to the street, turned hastily, as Kota’s husband appeared in the veranda entrance:—a tall and austere-looking Brahman, clad in a long, white garment. He came forward at once to greet his wife, giving Hilka but a careless recognition; for, to the head of the village, even his wife’s relatives were scarcely worthy of attention from him. And Hilka’s visit was brought to a sudden close; for no woman of Bul-Ruknu would, from choice, have stayed long in the proximity of the Priest of Siva. Kota bade her sister a quiet farewell, not asking her to come again—rather taking that for granted. And when the visitor was gone, she turned immediately to her husband, who touched her on the forehead, answered briefly her questions concerning the day’s auguries, and presently left her and went into the house. Kota, knowing that it would be useless to follow him, too dreary at heart to care whether or not he talked with her, returned to her cushions and sat down again to gaze off into space at the swirling, white heat-waves, and to dream, vaguely, of days that had never been. For an Indian, Kota was a pretty woman, her eyes being very large and soft, and her black hair, just now woven with yellow champak flowers, thick and long. She was seventeen years old, and had been married for three years. Moreover, she had been born a Brahman, and, in her married life, had been highly honored; for, though until now she had been childless, her husband had not taken another wife. Above all, Gokarna’s parents had died in his early youth; so that Kota, at her marriage made mistress of the finest house in Bul-Ruknu, had been also spared that terror and curse of all young Indian women—the mother-in-law, whose traditional duty it was to make the life of the young wife one of perpetual misery. At the time of her marriage, the girl Kota had been envied by every woman in the village. Later, despite the unheard-of advantages of her position, she had not been so much looked up to, for the reason that she was childless. But, just now, her star was again in the ascendant, since, in the winter, she was to present Gokarna’s house with a much-prayed-for heir.