"Kiss me, Pen ... and I'll hold Delehanty back..."
She yielded. That is to say she yielded with her mind. But the flesh rebelled. He gathered her in his arms taut as a bow-string. As his face approached hers she snapped. With a wild, blind reaction she tore herself free. No man could have held her. The open door was behind her. She darted through and slammed it shut. He put his shoulder against it, but she was at least as strong as he. She got the key turned.
He beat on the door with the sides of his fists, cursing horribly, but as always, oddly careful not to make too much noise.
Pen, nauseated with disgust, thought: "To be married to such a maniac!"
Like a maniac he fell suddenly silent. She pictured him listening. Presently his voice came softly as if he had his lips to the crack of the door, wheedling, crafty, threatening; infinitely more disgusting than his rage.
"Are you there? ... Listen, I'll give you another chance. Open the door!"
A silence.
"If you don't he goes to the chair! ... By God! I'll spend every cent I possess to send him to the chair. Do you get that? Better open the door!"
A silence.
"It'll be too late when he's strapped in the chair with the black cap on and the electrode at the back of his handsome white neck... You'll remember it was really you put him there... Twelve hundred volts they give them. You can smell them burning ... Well, how about it?"