Another year passed in silence as to Gold. How often we went down the street and looked across at her home, with its door almost always shut, and that icy-eyed mother on guard. We used to see her going about, never far from the house. When we saw her we salaamed; then she would glare at us grimly, and turn her back on us. Once the whole family went to a festival; but the girl of course was bundled in and out of a covered cart, and seen by no one, not even the next-door neighbours. There was talk of a marriage for her. Most girls of her Caste are married much younger; but to our relief this fell through, and once one of us saw her for a moment, and she still seemed to care to hear, though she was far too cowed by this time to show it. Then we heard a rumour that a girl from the Lake Village had been seen by some of our Christians in a wood near a village five miles distant. These Christians are very out-and-out and keen about converts, and they managed to discover that the girl in the wood had some thought of being a Christian, and that her being there had some connection with this, so they told us at once. The description fitted Gold. But we could not account for a girl of her Caste being seen in a wood; she was always kept in seclusion. At last we found out the truth. She had shown some sign of a lingering love for Christ, and her mother had taken her to a famous Brahman ascetic who lived in that wood; and there together, mother and daughter stayed in a hut near the hermit's hut, and for three days he had devoted himself to confuse and confound her, and finally he succeeded, and reported her convinced. [Illustration: This is the tangible brass-bossed door outside of which we so often stand on the stone step and knock, and hear voices from within call, "Everyone is out." The hand-marks are the hand-prints of the Power that keeps the door shut. Once a year, every door and the lintel of every window, and sometimes the walls, are marked like this. That evening, just before dark, the god comes round, they say, and looks for his mark on the door, and, seeing it, blesses all in the house. If there is no mark he leaves a curse. This is the devil's South Indian parody on the Passover.]