"What! You thankless hussy, were you going to run away?"
"'Tis no concern of yours, what I was going to do!"
"Oh, isn't it? We'll see about that! Begad, 'tis lucky I came back! So you were going to desert me, eh? Well, I'm damned if there was ever such ingratitude! After all I've done and suffered!"
She gave a derisive laugh, and defiantly resumed her packing.
"What! you're rebellious, are you?" quoth he. "But you'll not get away from me so easy, my lady. Not with those clothes, at least; for yourself, it doesn't much matter. I'll just put those things back into the press, and after this I'll carry the key. But your rings and necklace—I'll take charge of them first."
He stepped forward to lay hands upon the ornaments, which, for their greater security from him, she now wore upon her person at all times. She sprang away, ready to defend them by every possible means, and warning him not to touch her. Her flashing eyes and fiery mien checked him for a moment; then, with a curse, he seized her by the neck and essayed to undo the necklace. Thereupon she screamed loudly for help. To intimidate her into silence, he struck her in the face. At that she began to struggle and hit, so that he was hard put to it to retain hold of her and to save his face from her hands. Enraged by her efforts, he finally drew back to give her a more effectual blow; which he succeeded in doing, but at the cost of relaxing his grasp, so that she slipped from him and escaped by the door. She hastened down the stairs and into the street, he in wrathful pursuit. She fled toward the Strand.
"HE FINALLY DREW BACK TO GIVE HER A MORE EFFECTUAL BLOW."
At the corner of that thoroughfare, she ran into a trio of gentlemen who just at the moment reached the junction of the two streets.