“Burnt it!” He clenched his hands, and struggled to control himself. “Then I shall go; I shall go—when it suits me. I only wanted your money. A young man does not marry an old woman for anything but money, Anne. You are loathsome—loathsome and unwholesome,” he repeated, watching the effect of every word upon her—“and I have loathed being with you. I shall go to the other woman. She is my wife; I like her—she is young, not old and loathsome like you. I only married you for the sake of your money.” Aunt Anne never moved an inch; she only watched him steadily, as slowly he brought out his sentences, pausing between each one. “You have kept me from her all these months,” he went on, concentrating himself on every word he said; “and now you have taken from me the money I deserved for being with you—for being with a wrinkled, withered old woman.”
She did not move or speak. For a moment he showed his teeth again, then slowly lifted his hands.
“Anne,” he said, with a fiendish look in his eyes, but with the calm gravity of a just avenger, “I am going to strangle you”—and he went nearer and bent over her. He had no intention of carrying out his threat, it was a luxury he dared not afford himself, but he wanted to torture and frighten her till she quailed before him. For only one moment was his desire satisfied.
“If you dare to touch me——” she said, and a shriek burst from her. There was the sound of a door opening and of footsteps entering.
“Jane!” shouted Aunt Anne, “Jane!”
Jane opened the door and looked in.
“If you please, ma’am, I heard Mr. Knox, the policeman, go by, and you said you wanted him.”
Alfred Wimple stared at her in astonishment, and his face blanched. Aunt Anne recovered her self-possession in a moment, though she trembled from head to foot.
“If you will ask him to stay in the kitchen, I will speak to him,” she said. Then she turned to Alfred Wimple again.
“You will only get yourself laughed at,” he said.