"I want you to put that back!"
"I have got to have some money," he maintained sulkily, stowing it still
further in his trousers pocket.
"Give me that fifty dollar bill, I say!" went on Miriam, clutching at
him.
"No, I will not!" returned her husband, stubbornly, and sought to
escape; but she caught him by the arm and pulled him back. He tried to
wrench himself away; but for once her strength was superior to his. She
was beside herself with sudden anger, with shame, with ignominy, with
agony.
"You give that bill to me!" she said through her closed teeth.
"You let me go!" he growled, almost jerking himself out of her grasp.
Then followed a struggle that was short, sharp but decisive, inasmuch as
he finally succeeded in wrenching himself free from her. And now,
turning quickly, he smote her with his clenched hand full in the face.
Miriam staggered back; her eyes opened wide in humiliated astonishment.
"Oh! Laurie!" she cried, not with physical pain, although there upon her
face, now red, now white, was a broad, blotched mark--the bruise that
the brute had left there.
He made a movement to go; but again she was in time to prevent him; for
quick as a flash she had darted to the chiffonier, opened the top drawer
and drawn forth a weapon.
"Stop!" she cried in a hard voice. "Don't you dare to leave this room
with that money!"
Challoner blinked at her stupidly.
"What are you going to do?" he demanded.
Miriam laughed hysterically.
"What am I going to do? I know what you're going to do! You're going to
bring that fifty dollars back here to me!"
"Indeed? Well I'm not!" reiterated Challoner.
Miriam tapped the pistol in her hand.
"Do you see this?"
He grunted fearlessly.
"Well, what of it?"
"Give me that money," she insisted, approaching him. As yet she had not
levelled the weapon; and Challoner, seeing his opportunity, started once
more.
"_Stop!_" It was a new voice that spoke now: the blow that had struck
her face had suddenly transformed her into a desperate woman.
Challoner stopped; for he saw the weapon trained upon him. Again,
without affecting her aim, she tapped it.
"Listen to me!" she cried, her voice growing hoarser as she went on,
"this thing has been responsible for one murder, and now, Lawrence
Challoner, I'm going to kill you with it. It's the last straw that
breaks the camel's back. I hate you! I despise you!" she raged. "I loved
you once, I have always loved you until now; you loved me once, too, I
know--though other people thought that you had married me for my money.
But I knew different--you couldn't fool me about that! And it was
because of that love that I have lived for you and nothing else. You
have been everything in the world to me--my god, almost. But it is all
over now! I'm through with you, and I'm going to have you thrown like
some soiled rag into the gutters of humanity--where you belong!"
She paused for breath, but not once did her weapon falter.
"There are two things," she resumed, "that stand out in my memory just
now. The first is the night when you did not come home! Do you remember
that night?--No--there were too many of them later on! But I have never
forgotten that night I spent in the torture chamber! It was a white
night for me."