"No, you won't, at least not until I have told you something," he snarled.
He sprang to my side, and seized my shoulder in a cruel grip that made me wince.
"We'll just have this out once for all," he said. "If you go out of this door you go out for good. I don't care for the role of complacent husband."
The insult left me deadly cold. I knew, of course, that Dicky was so blinded by rage and jealousy that he had no idea of what he was saying. But ungovernable as I knew his temper to be, he had passed the limits of my forebearance.
"I will answer that speech in 10 minutes," I said and walked into my room again.
For I had come to a decision as startling as it was sudden. I hastily threw some most necessary things into a bag. Then I put a ten-dollar bill of the housekeeping money into my purse, resolving to send it back to Dicky as soon as I could get access to my own tiny bank account, the remnant of my teaching savings. Into a parcel I placed the rest of the housekeeping money, my wedding and engagement rings and the lavalliere which Dicky had given me as a wedding present. I put them in the back of the top drawer of my dressing table, for I knew if I handed them to Dicky in his present frame of mind he would destroy them. Then I walked steadily into the living room, bag in hand.
Dicky was nowhere to be seen, but I heard the murmur of voices in his mother's room. I went to the door and knocked. Dicky threw it open, his face still showing the marks of his anger.
"You will find the housekeeping money in the top drawer of my dressing table," I said calmly. "I will send you my address as soon as I have one, and you will please have Katie pack up my things and send them to me."
I turned and went swiftly to the door. As I closed it after me, I thought I heard Dicky cry out hoarsely. But I did not stop.
With my bag in my hand, I fairly fled down the stairs which led from our third floor apartment to the street. I had no idea where I was going or what I was going to do. Only one idea possessed me--to put as much space as possible between me and the apartment which held my husband and his mother.
Reaching the street, I started to walk along it briskly. But, trembling as I was from the humiliating scene I had just gone through, I saw that I could not walk indefinitely, and that I must get to some place at once where I could be alone and think.