nestly.

She wrung her hands. "Oh! the wicked man. The wicked, wicked man!" she
moaned, swaying her body from side to side.

"Yes. Yes! He is terrible," assented Almayer. "You must not lose any
time. I say! Do you understand me, Mrs. Willems? Think of your husband.
Of your poor husband. How happy he will be. You will bring him his
life--actually his life. Think of him."

She ceased her swaying movement, and now, with her head sunk between
her shoulders, she hugged herself with both her arms; and she stared at
Almayer with wild eyes, while her teeth chattered, rattling violently
and uninterruptedly, with a very loud sound, in the deep peace of the
house.

"Oh! Mother of God!" she wailed. "I am a miserable woman. Will he
forgive me? The poor, innocent man. Will he forgive me? Oh, Mr. Almayer,
he is so severe. Oh! help me. . . . I dare not. . . . You don't know
what I've done to him. . . . I daren't! . . . I can't! . . . God help
me!"

The last words came in a despairing cry. Had she been flayed alive she
could not have sent to heaven a more terrible, a more heartrending and
anguished plaint.

"Sh! Sh!" hissed Almayer, jumping up. "You will wake up everybody with
your shouting."

She kept on sobbing then without any noise, and Almayer stared at her
in boundless astonishment. The idea that, maybe, he had done wrong by
confiding in her, upset him so much that for a moment he could not find
a connected thought in his head.

At last he said: "I swear to you that your husband is in such a position
that he would welcome the devil . . . listen well to me . . . the
devil himself if the devil came to him in a canoe. Unless I am much
mistaken," he added, under his breath. Then again, loudly: "If you
have any little difference to make up with him, I assure you--I swear to
you--this is your time!"

The ardently persuasive tone of his words--he thought--would have
carried irresistible conviction to a graven image. He noticed with
satisfaction that Joanna seemed to have got some inkling of his meaning.
He continued, speaking slowly--

"Look here, Mrs. Willems. I can't do anything. Daren't. But I will tell
you what I will do. There will come here in about ten minutes a Bugis
man--you know the language; you are from Macassar. He has a large canoe;
he can take you there. To the new Rajah's clearing, tell him. They are
three brothers, ready for anything if you pay them . . . you have some
money. Haven't you?"

She stood--per