them, appearing vaguely,
high, motionless and patient; with a rustling plaint of its innumerable
leaves through which every drop of water tore its separate way with
cruel haste. And then, to the right, the house surged up in the
mist, very black, and clamorous with the quick patter of rain on its
high-pitched roof above the steady splash of the water running off the
eaves. Down the plankway leading to the door flowed a thin and pellucid
stream, and when Willems began his ascent it broke over his foot as
if he were going up a steep ravine in the bed of a rapid and shallow
torrent. Behind his heels two streaming smudges of mud stained for an
instant the purity of the rushing water, and then he splashed his way up
with a spurt and stood on the bamboo platform before the open door under
the shelter of the overhanging eaves--under shelter at last!

A low moan ending in a broken and plaintive mutter arrested Willems on
the threshold. He peered round in the half-light under the roof and saw
the old woman crouching close to the wall in a shapeless heap, and while
he looked he felt a touch of two arms on his shoulders. Aissa! He had
forgotten her. He turned, and she clasped him round the neck instantly,
pressing close to him as if afraid of violence or escape. He stiffened
himself in repulsion, in horror, in the mysterious revolt of his heart;
while she clung to him--clung to him as if he were a refuge from misery,
from storm, from weariness, from fear, from despair; and it was on the
part of that being an embrace terrible, enraged and mournful, in which
all her strength went out to make him captive, to hold him for ever.

He said nothing. He looked into her eyes while he struggled with her
fingers about the nape of his neck, and suddenly he tore her hands
apart, holding her arms up in a strong grip of her wrists, and bending
his swollen face close over hers, he said--

"It is all your doing. You . . ."

She did not understand him--not a word. He spoke in the language of his
people--of his people that know no mercy and no shame. And he was angry.
Alas! he was always angry now, and always speaking words that she could
not understand. She stood in silence, looking at him through her patient
eyes, while he shook her arms a little and then flung them down.

"Don't follow me!" he shouted. "I want to be alone--I mean to be left
alone!"

He went in, leaving the door open.

She did not move. What need to understand the words when