"Bring it up as you will, or trust it to whom you will, but from this hour it must be dead to us. I shall give you the money in my hand, and I will do more. This is June. From now every half year fifteen pounds shall be ready at an address in London that I will give you. To such a woman as you that should be a goodly sum, but my conditions are that within an hour you shall have made up a bundle of the best of your things, and left this place, never to return. If you ever molest us by letter or visit, the money will be stopped." "And suppose I tell everybody about it?" said the woman insolently. "It is no criminal proceeding that I am aware of," said Mrs Riversley coldly; "but you will not do that; you value the money too much. Do you agree to my terms?" "But my box," said the woman. "I can't carry away half my things." "Here is another five-pound note," said Mrs Riversley coldly; "five five-pound notes. I gave you ten pounds before, and you only gave that woman half." "How do you know?" "Because I know your grasping character," said Mrs Riversley firmly. "Now--quick--do you decide? Try to extort more, and finding what you are, I shall risk all discovery, and bear the shame sooner than be under your heel. Do you agree?" "Yes," said the woman surlily. "Quick, then; get your things and go. I will bring you the dress and jacket." "Ain't I to say good-bye to Miss Mary?" "No," said Mrs Riversley firmly. "Now go." The woman stood biting the side of one of her fingers for a few moments, and seemed to hesitate; but the rustle of the new bank-notes as Mrs Riversley laid them upon the table and placed a paperweight upon them decided her, and in an incredibly short time she stood once more in the room, in her best clothes, and with a bulky bundle tied up in an old Paisley shawl. Five minutes later she had received the money without a word being spoken on either side, and was standing just out of sight of the cottage, by the stream, hugging the bundle to her with one hand, and gnawing at the side of her finger. "What a fool I was!" she muttered viciously. "She'd have given double if I'd pressed her, and I'm put off now with a beggarly thirty pound a year. I've a good mind to go back." She took a few steps in the direction of the cottage, but stopped with a grim chuckle. "Thirty pound a year regular for doing nothing is better than ten pound and lots of work. Perhaps we should only quarrel, for she's a hard one when she's up. But I might have had more." She stood thinking for a few moments. "What shall I do?" she muttered. "If I leave it with them they'll kill it in a week, and then there's an end of it, and I get my money for nothing. If I fetch it away I have to keep it. But it may be worth my while. Mrs Riversley ain't everybody, for there's Miss Mary, and there's him, and if he isn't a swell, t'other one is, I'm sure. What's that?"