By the time they had reached the low doorway whence the sounds issued, the screams had died down to hysterical sobs. They plunged into the room which opened from the street, and then paused. It was so dark that for a moment they could not see anything. The only light came from a flickering oil-lamp burning before an image of the Madonna. But as their eyes became accustomed to the darkness they made out a stoutly built peasant woman standing at one end of the room and grasping in her hand an ox-goad such as the herdsmen on the Campagna use. For a moment they thought she was the only person there, until a low sob proclaimed the presence of a child who was crouching in the farthest corner. ‘What do you want?’ the woman asked, scowling angrily at the intruders. ‘Have you been striking the child with that goad?’ Sybert demanded. ‘I strike the child with what I please,’ the woman retorted. ‘He is a lazy good-for-nothing and he stole the soup.’ Marcia drew the little fellow from the corner where he was sobbing steadily with long catches in his breath. His tears had gained such a momentum that he could not stop, but he clung to her convulsively, realizing that a deliverer of some sort was at hand. She turned him to the light and revealed a great red welt across his cheek where one of the blows had chanced to fall. ‘It’s outrageous! The woman ought to be arrested!’ said Marcia, angrily. Sybert took the lamp from the wall and bent over to look at him. ‘Poor little devil! He looks as if he needed soup,’ he muttered. The woman broke in shrilly again to say that he was eleven years old and never brought in a single soldo. She slaved night and day to keep him fed, and she had children enough of her own to give to. ‘Whose child is he?’ Sybert demanded. ‘He was my husband’s,’ the woman returned; ‘and that husband is dead and I have a new one. The boy is in the way. I can’t be expected to support him forever. It is time he was earning something for himself.’ Marcia sat down on a low stool and drew the boy to her. ‘What can we do?’ she asked, looking helplessly at Sybert. ‘It won’t do to leave him here. She would simply beat him to death as soon as our backs are turned.’ ‘I’m afraid she would,’ he acknowledged. ‘Of course I can threaten her with the police, but I don’t believe it will do much good.’ He was thinking that she might better adopt the boy than the dog, but he did not care to put his thoughts into words. ‘I know!’ she exclaimed as if in answer to his unspoken suggestion; ‘I’ll take him home for an errand-boy. He will be very useful about the place. Tell the woman, please, that I’m going to keep him, and make her understand that she has nothing to do with him any more.’ ‘Would Mrs. Copley like to have him at the villa?’ Sybert inquired doubtfully. ‘It’s hardly fair——’ ‘Oh, yes. She won’t mind if I insist—and I shall insist. Tell the woman, please.’