"What are you doing here?" blazed Dexter, giving Dick a shaking that made his teeth rattle.
"I sent for him, Abner. I wanted to find how I could best reward him for——"
"For interfering with me on another occasion—yes, I know!" finished her husband, glaring at her. "You'd spend a lot of money on any one who tried to injure me, but you wouldn't give me a cent to keep me from starving!"
As Dexter rattled off this charge he worked himself up into a passion. He shook Dick again, until he espied a closet in the room, in the lock of which was the key.
"In there for you!" snarled Dexter, still shaking Prescott and dragging him across the room. Slam! Into the closet went Dick. Click! went the lock, and Dexter thrust the key into his pocket.
"I'll take command of things here, as I ought to," growled the man. "As for you, Jennie, here's another closet on the other side of the room. Come, for I don't want to hurt you."
Frightened badly now, the woman obeyed the impulse of Dexter's hand on her arm. She sank, cowering, into the other closet. Dexter turned the key in that lock also.
"Now, are you going to come to your senses?" He called through the locked door to his wife.
"If you mean am I going to give you any more money, I am not!" came Mrs. Dexter's reply, in a firmer tone, for she had been stung anew into defiance.
"Then good night—and good-bye!" he laughed harshly.