th the lock the
door behind her opened, and her heart rose in her throat with the sudden
velocity of an express elevator shooting up a ten-story shaft.

In the dresser mirror, and without turning her head or gaining her feet,
she looked into the eyes of her husband.

"Pussy-cat!" he said, and came toward her with his teeth flashing like
Carrara marble in sunlight.

She sprang to her feet and backed against the dresser.

"Don't! Don't you come near me!"

"You don't mean that, Goldie."

She shivered in her scorn.

"Don't you come near me! I came--to get my things."

"Oh!" he said, and tossed his hat on the bed and peeled off his coat.
"Help yourself, kiddo. Go as far as you like."

She fell to tearing at the contents of her drawer without
discrimination, cramming them into her bag and breathing furiously, like
a hare in the torture of the chase. The color sprang out in her cheeks,
and her eyes took fire.

Her husband threw himself, in his shirt-sleeves and waistcoat, across
the bed and watched her idly. Only her fumbling movements and the sing
of the too-high gas broke the silence. He rose, lowered the flame, and
lay down again.

Her little box of poor trinkets spilled its contents as she packed it;
her hair-brush fell from her trembling fingers and clattered to the
floor.

"Can I help you, Goldie-eyes?"

Silence. He coughed rather deep in his chest, and she almost brushed
his hand as she passed to the clothes wardrobe. He reached out and
caught her wrist.

"Now, Goldie, you--"

"Don't--don't you touch me! Let go!"

He drew her down to the bed beside him.

"Can't you give a fellow another chance, baby? Can't you?" She tugged
for her freedom, but his clasp was tight as steel and tender as love.
"Can't you, baby?"

"You!" she said, kicking at the sloppy satin slipper at her feet, as if
it were a loathsome thing that crawled. "I--I don't ever want to see you
again, you--you--"

"You drove me to it, pussy; honest you did!"

"You didn't need no driving. You take to it like a fish to water--nobody
can drive you. You just ain't--no--good!"

"You drove me to it. When you quit I just went crazy mad. I kicked the
skylight--I tore things wide open. I was that sore for you--honest,
baby!"

"I've heard that line of talk before. I ain't forgot the night at
Hinkey's. I ain't forgot nothing. You or horses can't hold me here!" She
wrenched at her wrists.

"I got a job yesterday, baby. Bill made good. Eight