Almost immediately upon our seating ourselves in the court-room the poor girl burst into tears and ran outside and hid round a corner. It was with great difficulty that we persuaded her to come back and face the magistrate, who apparently was treating her with the utmost kindness. After considerable parleying in Hindustani and English, the magistrate at last acceded to our wishes, and wrote out a permit for us to take the girl away from the Cantonment, although he explained again and again that she or any other woman was of course free to go; they never attempted to detain a woman against her will, etc., etc. But Katy was not willing to proceed on any uncertainty, and she then asked about the fine, and was assured that would be all right. The magistrate then explained that she had been arrested on "some criminal charge,"--he did not quite know what--had fled the Cantonment, been arrested and brought back and fined fifty rupees for contempt of court. He made no mention of her long imprisonment in addition. After that he began to set forth to her, in Hindustani (the meaning of his threats we did not fully understand), that if she went out of the Cantonment she would never be safe from the insults of soldiers, nor protected from molestation, nor allowed ever again to see her relatives, etc., etc., until her courage wavered, and she said, "Then I don't want to go." At this he thundered at her so angrily that once again she ran from the court-room, and it was with the utmost difficulty we persuaded her to go back for the final adjustment of the case. On her return she began to plead to be allowed to see her friends; and the magistrate, then turning to us, advised us in a kindly tone to take her to see her mother and sister before removing her entirely from them. This the girl herself desired, so we felt obliged to accede, and she gave the cabman the address in Hindustani. Returning in the carriage, down an unfamiliar street, we alighted, and Katy ran ahead in all haste to find her mother, while we followed after. To our astonishment, we found we had entered the chakla again, from a side we had not recognised, and by an entrance which we had never before seen. We took alarm at once, and hastened on toward the wretched old woman who lay ill on a cot on the verandah, with whom Katy was talking earnestly.