Dick feared she was going mad, and with an instinctive movement he put out his arms to restrain her. 'Don't touch me! don't touch me!' she screamed, and struck at him with clenched fists, and then feeling that her blows were but puny she went for him like a bird of prey, all her fingers distended. 'Take that, and that, and that, you beast! Oh, you beast! you beast! you beast!' Her shrieks rang through the house as she pursued him round the furniture; he retreating like a lumbering bull striving to escape from her claws. 'How do you like that?' she cried, as she tore at him with her nails again. 'That will teach you to go messing about after other women. I'll settle you before I've done with you.' Chairs were thrown down, the coal-scuttle was upset, and at last, as Dick tried to get out of the room, Kate stumbled against a rosewood cabinet, sending one of the green vases with its glass shade crashing to the ground, summoning the landlady. Dick spoke about his wife having had a fit. 'Fit or no fit, I hope you'll leave my house to-morrow.' 'Meanwhile,' Dick answered, 'will you leave my room?' and he shut the door in the face of the indignant householder. Kate, who had now recovered herself a little, poured out a large glass of raw gin, and to her surprise Dick made no attempt to prevent her drinking it. 'As soon as she drinks herself helpless the better,' he thought, as he went into the bedroom to attend to his wounds. The scratches she had given him before their marriage were nothing to these. One side of his nose was well-nigh ripped open, and there were two big, deep gashes running right across his face, from the cheek-bone to his ear. It was very lucky, he thought, she hadn't had his eye out, and it might be as well to go round to the apothecary's and get some vaseline, some antiseptic treatment, for nails are poisonous, he added, and his eyes going round the room caught sight of his clothes in disorder. 'Ah! she has been at my clothes,' and he took up the classical cartoons and his letters and put them away into his pocket, and went into the sitting room, and tried to explain to his wife that he was going out to see if he could get something from the apothecary to heal the wounds she had given him.