day or two--as if a new light had suddenly dawned upon him--he
would send for me and say: "It was my mistake. Your suggestion
was the correct one." He would often confess to me that wherever
he had taken steps contrary to my advice he had gone wrong. Thus
I gradually came to be convinced that behind whatever was taking
place was Sandip Babu, and behind Sandip Babu was the plain
common sense of a woman. The glory of a great responsibility
filled my being.

My husband had no place in our counsels. Sandip Babu treated him
as a younger brother, of whom personally one may be very fond and
yet have no use for his business advice. He would tenderly and
smilingly talk about my husband's childlike innocence, saying
that his curious doctrine and perversities of mind had a flavour
of humour which made them all the more lovable. It was seemingly
this very affection for Nikhil which led Sandip Babu to forbear
from troubling him with the burden of the country.

Nature has many anodynes in her pharmacy, which she secretly
administers when vital relations are being insidiously severed,
so that none may know of the operation, till at last one awakes
to know what a great rent has been made. When the knife was busy
with my life's most intimate tie, my mind was so clouded with
fumes of intoxicating gas that I was not in the least aware of
what a cruel thing was happening. Possibly this is woman's
nature. When her passion is roused she loses her sensibility for
all that is outside it. When, like the river, we women keep to
our banks, we give nourishment with all that we have: when we
overflow them we destroy with all that we are.