CHAPTER XTIME IS SHORT
For a moment Worrals was stunned by sheer shock, but reaction followed swiftly. A fierce anger surged through her, but she took care not to show it. Instead, she adopted an attitude of passive resignation. But her eyes were busy, and this is what they saw.
The vestry was lighted by an oil lantern of the hurricane type, presumably the one for which, over a period of time, the matches had been struck. Carl was holding it in his left hand with the base resting on his knee. The two back feet of the chair on which he was seated rested on a strip of coconut matting, the material commonly used for covering stone floors; the front feet would also have rested on it had they touched the ground, but since Carl chose to lean back in an attitude of bored indifference, the chair
