Absolutely, he believed that she had handed him the ammonia-soaked handkerchief deliberately and with malice, and well she knew that no power on earth could now or at any time henceforth persuade him otherwise.
"Of course I didn't mean it, Penrod," she said, at the first opportunity upon their homeward way.

"I didn't notice--that is, I didn't think--" Unfortunately for the effect of sincerity she hoped to produce, her voice became tremulous and her shoulders moved suspiciously.
"Just you wait! You'll see!" he prophesied, in a voice now choking, not with ammonia, but with emotion.

"Poison a person, and then laugh in his face!" He spake no more until they had reached their own house, though she made some further futile efforts at explanation and apology.
And after brooding abysmally throughout the meal that followed, he disappeared from the sight of his family, having answered with one frightful look his mother's timid suggestion that it was almost time for Sunday-school.

He retired to his eyry--the sawdust box in the empty stable--and there gave rein to his embittered imaginings, incidentally forming many plans for Margaret.
Most of these were much too elaborate; but one was so alluring that he dwelt upon it, working out the details with gloomy pleasure, even after he had perceived its defects.

It involved some postponement--in fact, until Margaret should have become the mother of a boy about Penrod's present age.