position. In that way, and
impelled by that motive, Almayer had hated many and various persons at
various times. But he never had hated and feared anybody so much as he
did hate and fear Willems. Even after Willems' treachery, which seemed
to remove him beyond the pale of all human sympathy, Almayer mistrusted
the situation and groaned in spirit every time he caught sight of
Joanna.

He saw her very seldom in the daytime. But in the short and opal-tinted
twilights, or in the azure dusk of starry evenings, he often saw, before
he slept, the slender and tall figure trailing to and fro the ragged
tail of its white gown over the dried mud of the riverside in front of
the house. Once or twice when he sat late on the verandah, with his feet
upon the deal table on a level with the lamp, reading the seven months'
old copy of the North China Herald, brought by Lingard, he heard the
stairs creak, and, looking round the paper, he saw her frail and meagre
form rise step by step and toil across the verandah, carrying with
difficulty the big, fat child, whose head, lying on the mother's bony
shoulder, seemed of the same size as Joanna's own. Several times she had
assailed him with tearful clamour or mad entreaties: asking about her
husband, wanting to know where he was, when he would be back; and ending
every such outburst with despairing and incoherent self-reproaches that
were absolutely incomprehensible to Almayer. On one or two occasions she
had overwhelmed her host with vituperative abuse, making him responsible
for her husband's absence. Those scenes, begun without any warning,
ended abruptly in a sobbing flight and a bang of the door; stirred the
house with a sudden, a fierce, and an evanescent disturbance; like those
inexplicable whirlwinds that rise, run, and vanish without apparent
cause upon the sun-scorched dead level of arid and lamentable plains.

But to-night the house was quiet, deadly quiet, while Almayer stood
still, watching that delicate balance where he was weighing all his
chances: Joanna's intelligence, Lingard's credulity, Willems'
reckless audacity, desire to escape, readiness to seize an unexpected
opportunity. He weighed, anxious and attentive, his fears and his
desires against the tremendous risk of a quarrel with Lingard. . . .
Yes. Lingard would be angry. Lingard might suspect him of some
connivance in his prisoner's escape--but surely he would not quarrel
with him--Almayer--about those people once the