Yama replied, "O amiable Sabitri, while living, your excellent husband possessed many good qualities and was justly remarkable for his righteousness. It was improper, therefore, to have sent my imps to carry him away. With this view I am come myself." So saying Yama forcibly drew out the finger-shaped soul from Satyavana's body. Being deprived of the vital spirit, the dead body became motionless, pale and pallid; and Yama went towards the South. The chaste Sabitri, in order to obtain the fruit of her vow, followed him with sad looks and a heavy heart. Seeing this, Yama remonstrated with her and ordered her to return home and perform the funeral obsequies of her husband. Sabitri said she would go wherever her husband was carried, and that by her unceasing prayer to the Almighty, by her firm faith in her spiritual guide, by the solemn fulfilment of her sacred vow, and by his (Yama's) grace, her course would be free and unrestrained. "O king of the infernal regions," said she, "kindly deign to lend a listening ear to a suppliant's prayer. He that has not obtained a complete mastery over his senses should not come to the forest to lead there either a domestic life, or a student's life, or the life of a devotee. Those who have effectually controlled their passions are fit to fulfil the necessary conditions of the four different modes of life. Of these four modes, the domestic life is decidedly the best, being most favourable to the acquisition of knowledge and wisdom, and to the cultivation of piety and virtue. Persons like myself do not desire to lead any other than a domestic life." "Now return home, O fair Sabitri; I am much pleased with your wise observations; I am willing to grant you any boon save the life of your husband," exclaimed Yama. Sabitri replied, "O king, be graciously pleased to restore eyesight to my blind father-in-law, and make him powerful as the Sun or the Fire, that he may be enabled to regain his kingdom and rule it with vigour." Yama granted the boon, and directed her to return home after the fatiguing journey. Sabitri answering said, "O virtuous king, I feel no trouble or fatigue while I am with my husband, for a husband is the strength and stay of his wife, and the wife is the sharer of her husband's weal or woe: The wife, where danger or dishonor lurks, Safest and seemliest by her husband stays, Who guards her, or with her the worst endures. "Wherever, therefore, you carry my husband, my footsteps will dog you thither. Our very first intercourse with the good and the righteous leads to the growth of confidence and kindly feeling, which is always productive of the most beneficial results." Whereupon Yama replied, "O thoughtful lady, thy words are agreeable to my heart; they are fraught with meaning and good sense. I shall willingly grant you another boon save the life of your husband." "Allow me, then, O virtuous king, to ask for a hundred begotten sons to my father, who has no son," said Sabitri.