When Shri Nathji had left Mussoorie he had left Shri Durga Das Khosla there in charge of his house. Shri Khosla was resolute in his service for a while, but then the call of the material world became too strong for him.
He simply had to go home and attend to his important works. He forgot that it was he who had offered to remain with Shri Nathji for the rest of his life to serve him. He had asked for leave to go to his home, but had not yet received Shri Nathji’s consent to go because of the relentless attack on the Mussoorie property by the antagonists there.
One day he could restrain himself no longer. The urge to leave Mussoorie became so strong that he decided to not to wait for Shri Nathji’s permission any longer, but simply to run away. He would never have done that in his office or in his home, but he imagined he could do so with impunity with Shri Nathji. After all he was bound only by the slender thread of faith–and had no obligation to obey Shri Nathji when his self interest was involved.
One day he tied the dog in the house to a tree, and left the keys of Savitri Nivas with the chowkidar of the neighbouring house, Kasmanda Lodge, and simply disappeared from Mussoorie. Later the dog was found in a half-dead condition tied to the tree and dying of thirst. The keys could have fallen into the hands of the antagonists at Mussoorie.
Priya Nath was so hurt by the betrayal that he wrote to Shri Khosla telling him that he would never secure peace of mind for betraying his Lord and Master. And this came true in the years that followed.
Shri Durga Das Khosla never forgave himself for the act of betrayal, and in later years, whenever he wrote to Shri Nathji, he would beg for forgiveness for the “unpardonable sin he had committed”. Even though both, Priya Nath and Shri Nathji tried to convince him that they had forgotten all about the episode, he would not forgive himself.
Many years later when he lay dying from a heart condition, at the Post Graduate Institute for Medicine at Chandigarh, he sent his last letter to Shri Nathji asking to be forgiven. Priya Nath sent him a long telegram telling him that he had not committed any sin at all, and that in any case, he had been forgiven long ago. Shri Khosla, thereafter, passed away in peace, the name of his Master, Shri Nathji, on his lips during the last moments of his life.