Albert Kinross

“ It was not like living at a hotel; it was not much like sight-seeing. One took the sights as one found them. The African sun was overhead, and perhaps it was burning away their sorrows; filling them too with some of the serene animalism, the careless languor of this ancient country whose mysteries and profundities were so other, so different, from their own.
The sister and brother-in-law marked the change in Constance.
"It was what she needed," they both said. "Always to bury herself and haunt that cemetery!" ”

“ She was in white now—it was he who had spoken of it—and she hardly knew herself again; for it made her look younger. It was like meeting an old self that was half forgotten. And away from the town and riding out in the desert on camels or on donkeys and visiting the tombs and monuments, she was almost happy.
She had not understood before how full the world was of tombs and tears. The sun was giving her a color, a faint bronze; that African sun of which he had spoken. She liked the Arab guides and donkey-drivers; they paid her such delicious compliments. ”

“ So they came to make their bargain: and, "Here," thought Constance, "is a human being who understands."
She was less lonely now with those two graves to care for, with a fresh thought or two to think, and the knowledge that she was not so extraordinary as her brother and sister had declared. This Mr. Molineux was acting very much as she was acting; he was feeling as she was feeling; he was not likely to betray his dead. On one point only did they differ. In spite of his inexplicable loss, Victor Molineux still believed in God. ”

“ He glanced round the room now to the places where once had hung those missing portraits.
She understood him.
"It is not we who are unfaithful," she answered; "it is the dead who betray the living."
She spoke slowly; she seemed to like that phrase, just as she had liked its predecessor.
"You have not been to the cemetery yet? It is spring there," he said. ”

“ The man with the thin hair and eye-glasses was ever present during Molineux's visits, and when Constance came to the large apartment-house which faced the lake, there was that impassive woman looking out on her from every corner of the room. ”