"Please let me go."
"Where are you going? You're my wife—you'll have to stay with me." His hand was on the door handle now; he was looking down at her with haggard eyes in his white face.
"Let's begin all over again, Christine. I've been a rotter, I know; but if you'll have a little patience—it's not too late—we can patch things up, and—and I'll promise you——"
She cut him short.
"You are saying this because she is dead. If she were living you would not care what I did, or what became of me." Suddenly her voice changed wildly. "Oh, let me go—let me go!"
For a moment their glances met, and for the first time in his spoilt and pampered life Jimmy Challoner saw hatred looking at him through a woman's eyes. It drove the hot blood to his head; he was unnerved with the shock he had suffered that evening. For a moment he saw the world red; he lifted his clenched fist.
"Go, then—and a damned good riddance!"
"Jimmy!" Her scream of terror stayed his hand, and kept him from striking her. He staggered back, aghast at the thing he had so nearly done.
"Christine—Christine——" he stammered; but she had gone. The shutting and locking of her bedroom door was his only answer.