Each was to the other the only helper.
Kunda Nandini was of marriageable age; but she was the staff of her father's blindness, his only bond to this world.

While he lived he could give her up to no one.

"There are but a few more days; if I give away Kunda where can I abide ?" were the old man's thoughts when the question of giving her in marriage arose in his mind.

Had it never occurred to him to ask himself what would become of Kunda when his summons came?
Now the messenger of death stood at his bedside; he was about to leave the world; where would Kunda be on the morrow?
The deep, indescribable suffering of this thought expressed itself in every failing breath.

Tears streamed from his eyes, ever restlessly closing and opening, while at his head sat the thirteen-year-old girl, like a stone figure, firmly looking into her father's face, covered with the shadows of death.