His fingers gripped her throat and stopped her breath. Through the roar of surging blood she could barely hear the vile words he was dinning into her ears.
“I know you just asked me, you nosing little devil, and it's none of your business! She's a pal of mine, if you want to know, the slickest thief that ever robbed a flat. She's got more sense in a minute than you'll ever have in a lifetime. She's going to live here with me now. You can sleep on the cot in the kitchen. And you come when she calls, if you know what's good for your lazy hide. I've told her to thrash the life out of you if you dare to give her any impudence.”
She had cowered at his feet and begged him not to beat her again. The fumes of whiskey and stale beer filled the place.
Jim turned from her to quell a new fight at the other end of the room. Another woman was there, coarse, dirty, beastly. She drew a knife and demanded her share of the night's robberies. She was trying to break from the men who held her to stab Jim. They were all fighting and smashing the furniture——
She sprang from the bed with a cry of horror. The noise was real! It was not a dream. The beast inside was stumbling in the dark. His passions fired by liquor, he was fumbling to find his way into her room.
She rushed to the door and put her shoulder against the bar, panting in terror.
She heard his strangling cry:
“Here! Here! Great God! Do you know what you're doing?”
And then his mother's voice, mad with greed, cruel, merciless:
“I just want yer money—that's all, an' I'm goin' to have it!”