She began to wander about the room avoiding the lawyer, invoking always the youth which she seemed to see expiring before her, in the inexorable limits of nature.
Bofinger, after a vain attempt to check her, remained helpless in the presence of such hysteria. A moment later he stole from the room, took his satchel and went to the door. There he stopped, waited, saw her convulsed with sobbing, frowned, raised his shoulders and slipped out.
On the sidewalk the gods of suspicion, which ruled him, made him cry suddenly:
"Hell! I am a fool to be so tender-hearted. She's been lyin' to me to hide some mystery. That was the time to put the screws on!"
He hesitated, scanning the shade. From time to time a silhouette passed, frantic and suffering. This shadow, without life or body, representing nothing but an agony, horrified him. He turned and hastened away.
CHAPTER III THE FIRM OF GROLL AND BOFINGER
Six months previous to the events of the last chapter, four men were awaiting the opening of the afternoon session of the police court, in an office whose glass front displayed to the travel of Tenth Street the legend,
Hyman Groll & Alonzo Bofinger