There was a reason for this.

As Nagendra did not write to Kunda, she had been accustomed to send to the _Dewan_ for the letters received by him.

She did not return the letters, and she lived in fear that the _Dewan_ would claim them; and in fact the man no longer sent them to her, but only suffered her to read them as he held them in his hand.
The suffering felt by Surja Mukhi was endured in equal measure by Kunda Nandini.

Surja Mukhi loved her husband; did not Kunda love him?
In that little heart there was inexhaustible love, and because it could find no expression, like obstructed breathing it wounded her heart.

From childhood, before her first marriage, Kunda had loved Nagendra; she had told no one, no one knew it.