The two men left the office together.
* * * * * "Listen!" The two women sat in silence, waiting for some repetition of the sound.
This time there was certainly no possibility of any mistake.

From the room above their heads came the feeble, quavering sobbing of an old man.
Julie threw down her book and sprang up.
"Mother, I cannot bear it any longer," she cried.

"I know where the key is, and I am going into that room." Mrs.Da Souza's portly frame quivered with excitement.
"My child," she pleaded, "don't Julie, do remember! Your father will know, and then--oh, I shall be frightened to death!" "It is nothing to do with you, mother," the girl said, "I am going." Mrs.Da Souza produced a capacious pocket-handkerchief, reeking with scent, and dabbed her eyes with it.

From the days when she too had been like Julie, slim and pretty, she had been every hour in dread of her husband.

Long ago her spirit had been broken and her independence subdued.