“This is an outrage!” she shrieked. “And all that I suffered with that witch his aunt! Is this the reward they give me? May the Devil take me if I don’t put this in the papers,—I who have passed my life chained down to work like a dog!”
Sebastião, against his will, listened with painful curiosity to these details. He felt an intense desire to choke her, and with his ears he devoured her words. When she paused, out of breath,—
“Put on your hat, and let us go,” he said.
Juliana, convulsed with rage, her eyes starting from their sockets, went up to him and spat in his face. But all at once she opened her mouth to its fullest extent, bent forward, pressed her hands to her heart with an agonized expression on her countenance, and fell, with a dull noise, a lifeless heap upon the floor. Sebastião bent over her and tried to move her; she was rigid, and a reddish foam discolored her lips. He caught up his hat, hurried downstairs, and ran along the Patriarchal. An empty carriage was passing. He hailed it, entered, and ordered the driver to take him with all speed to the house of Julião, whom he obliged to accompany him at once, without a collar, and in slippers.
“It is very serious—Juliana—” he murmured, with a pallid countenance.
On the way, amidst the noise of the carriage and of bells ringing, he told his companion incoherently that he had gone to Luiza’s, that he had found Juliana enraged at having been dismissed, and that, while talking and gesticulating she had suddenly fallen lifeless upon the floor.
“It was there, and it must happen one day or another,” said Julião, puffing his cigar.
The carriage stopped. Sebastião in his excitement had closed the door behind him on leaving the house. And the dead woman inside! The driver offered his latch-key, with which they succeeded in opening the door.
“Sha’n’t we take a little drive to Dá Fundo?” said the driver, as he put his latch-key back into his pocket.
But on seeing the door close behind them,—