Those straight, regular features of his made his face look very severe.
You could hardly believe that it was possible for them on occasion to be changed by so sweet a smile.
He was able to read as calmly as though she were a thousand miles away; she saw him turn the pages and she saw his eyes move regularly as they travelled from line to line.
He was not thinking of her.
And when, the table being set and dinner brought in, he put aside his book and gave her a glance (not knowing how the light on his face threw into distinctness his expression), she was startled to see in his eyes a look of physical distaste.
Yes, it startled her.
Was it possible that his love had left him entirely?
Was it possible that he really designed her death?
It was absurd. That would be the act of a madman.
It was odd, the little shiver that ran through her as the thought occurred to her that perhaps Walter was not quite sane.
XXX
SUDDENLY her bearers, long silent, began to speak and one of them, turning round, with words she could not understand and with a gesture, sought to attract her attention.
She looked in the direction he pointed and there, on the top of a hill, saw an archway; she knew by now that it was a memorial in compliment of a fortunate scholar or a virtuous widow, she had passed many of them since they left the river; but this one, silhouetted against the westering sun, was more fantastic and beautiful than any she had seen.
Yet, she knew not why, it made her uneasy; it had a significance which she felt but could not put into words: was it a menace that she vaguely discerned or was it derision?
She was passing a grove of bamboos and they leaned over the causeway strangely as if they would detain her; though the summer evening was windless their narrow green leaves shivered a little.
It gave her the sensation that someone hidden among them was watching her as she passed.
Now they came to the foot of the hill and the rice-fields ceased.
The bearers took it with a swinging stride.
The hill was covered close with little green mounds, close, close to one another, so that the ground was ribbed like the sea-sand when the tide has gone out; and this she knew too, for she had passed just such a spot as they approached each populous city and left it.
It was the graveyard.
Now she knew why the bearers had called her attention to the archway that stood on the crest of the hill: they had reached the end of their journey.
They passed through the archway and the chair-bearers paused to change the pole from shoulder to shoulder.
One of them wiped his sweating face with a dirty rag.
The causeway wound down.
There were bedraggled houses on each side.
Now the night was falling.
But the bearers on a sudden broke into excited talk and with a jump that shook her ranged themselves as near as they could to the wall.
In a moment she knew what had startled them, for as they stood there, chattering to one another, four peasants passed, quick and silent, bearing a new coffin, unpainted, and its fresh wood gleamed white in the approaching darkness.
Kitty felt her heart beat in terror against her ribs. The coffin passed, but the bearers stood still; it seemed as though they could not summon up the will to go on.
But there was a shout from behind and they started.
They did not speak now.
They walked for a few minutes longer and then turned sharply into an open gateway.
The chair was set down.
She had arrived.
XXXI
It was a bungalow and she entered the sitting-room.
She sat down while the coolies, straggling in one by one, brought in their loads.
Walter in the courtyard gave directions where this or that was to be placed.
She was very tired. She was startled to hear an unknown voice.
"May I come in?"
She flushed and grew pale.
She was overwrought and it made her nervous to meet a stranger.
A man came out of the darkness, for the long low room was lit only by a shaded lamp, and held out his hand.
"My name is Waddington.
I am the Deputy Commissioner."
"Oh, the Customs. I know.
I heard that you were here."
In that dim light she could see only that he was a little thin man, no taller than she, with a bald head and a small, bare face.
"I live just at the bottom of the hill, but coming in this way you wouldn't have seen my house.
I thought you'd be too fagged to come and dine with me, so I've ordered your dinner here and I've invited myself."