And while
she mopped her eyes and looked backward, Julie disappeared.
Even Julie, as she ascended the stairs with the key of the locked
room in her hand, was conscious of unusual tremors. If her position
with regard to her father was not the absolute condition of serfdom
into which her mother had been ground down, she was at least afraid
of him, and she remembered the strict commands he had laid upon them
all. The room was not to be open save by himself. All cries and
entreaties were to be disregarded, every one was to behave as though
that room did not exist. They had borne it already for days, the
heart-stirring moans, the faint, despairing cries of the prisoner,
and she could bear it no longer. She had a tender little heart, and
from the first it had been moved by the appearance of the pitiful
old man, leaning so heavily upon her father's arm, as they had come
up the garden walk together. She made up her mind to satisfy
herself at least that his isolation was of his own choice. So she
went boldly up the stairs and thrust the key into the lock. A
moment's hesitation, then she threw it open.
Her first impulse, when she had looked into the face of the man who
stumbled up in fear at her entrance, was to then and there abandon
her enterprise - for Monty just then was not a pleasant sight to
look upon.
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