After listening for a while intently on her knees, Mrs.Almayer rose with a deep sigh, while two tears wandered slowly down her withered cheeks.

She wiped them off quickly with a wisp of her grey hair as if ashamed of herself, but could not stifle another loud sigh, for her heart was heavy and she suffered much, being unused to tender emotions.

This time she fancied she had heard a faint noise, like the echo of her own sigh, and she stopped, straining her ears to catch the slightest sound, and peering apprehensively towards the bushes near her.
"Who is there ?" she asked, in an unsteady voice, while her imagination peopled the solitude of the riverside with ghost-like forms.

"Who is there ?" she repeated faintly.
There was no answer: only the voice of the river murmuring in sad monotone behind the white veil seemed to swell louder for a moment, to die away again in a soft whisper of eddies washing against the bank.
Mrs.Almayer shook her head as if in answer to her own thoughts, and walked quickly away from the bushes, looking to the right and left watchfully.

She went straight towards the cooking-shed, observing that the embers of the fire there glowed more brightly than usual, as if somebody had been adding fresh fuel to the fires during the evening.