By that time I had passed on, raising my hat.
Almost at once Fyne caught me up and slowed down to my strolling gait which must have been infinitely irksome to his high pedestrian faculties.
I am sure that all his muscular person must have suffered from awful physical boredom; but he did not attempt to charm it away by conversation.

He preserved a portentous and dreary silence.

And I was bored too.

Suddenly I perceived the menace of even worse boredom.

Yes! He was so silent because he had something to tell me.
I became extremely frightened.