The light was out in the office, and the big lounge room, where lumps of half-dry mud lay upon the board floor, was unoccupied.

The bell-boy, who was using a brush amidst a cloud of dust, said he did not think the boss had gone upstairs, and with sudden suspicion Sadie entered a dark passage that led to a room where commercial travelers showed their goods.

She opened the door and stopped just inside, her head tilted back and an angry sparkle in her eyes.
The room was very hot and smelt of liquor, tobacco, and kerosene; the lamp had been turned too high and its cracked chimney was black.
Charnock and three others sat round a table on which stood a bottle and four glasses.

One of the glasses had upset and there was a pool, bordered by soaked cigar-ash, on the boards.

The men were playing cards, and a pile of paper money indicated that the stakes were high.
Sadie knew them all and deeply distrusted one, whom she suspected of practising on her husband's weaknesses; she disliked another, and the third did not count.