CHAPTER XXXII.
THE FRUIT OF HIRA'S POISON TREE.
Hira has sold her precious jewel in exchange for a cowrie.

Virtue may be preserved with much pains for a long time; yet a day's carelessness may lose it.

So it was with Hira.

The wealth to gain which she had sold her precious jewel was but a broken shell; for such love as Debendra's is like the bore in the river, as muddy as transient.

In three days the flood subsided, and Hira was left in the mud.