“Look here, mum,” he had said in conclusion, “if you want money you must give value, do you understand? At present you have had lots of money out of me, but I have had precious little value out of you. On the day that you tell me Joan’s true address there will be five-and-twenty sovereigns to go into your pocket. Look, I keep them ready,”—and going to a drawer he unlocked it and showed her the gold, at which Mrs. Gillingwater glared avariciously. “Yes, and on the day that I marry her there’ll be fifty more to follow. Don’t you be afraid but what I can afford it and will keep my word. But till I get that address you sha’n’t have a sixpence—no, not if it was to save you from the poorhouse.” “I tell you, Mr. Rock, that I have no more notion where she has flitted to than a babe unborn. If any one knows, it’s old Levinger or Sir Henry.” “And if they know, they keep their mouths shut,” said Samuel. “Well ma’am, you have got my answer, so now I will wish you good morning. When you can let me have that address I shall be glad to see you, but till then perhaps you’ll keep clear, as it don’t look well for a married woman to be always hanging about my house.” “Any one with a grain of sense in his head might be pretty certain that she wasn’t hanging after an oily-tongued half-bred saint like you,” retorted Mrs. Gillingwater furiously. “I don’t wonder that Joan never could abide you, that I don’t, with your sneaking, snuffling ways, and your eye cocked round the corner. She hates the sight of you, and that’s why she’s run away. She hates you as much as she loves Sir Henry, and small blame to her: ay, you may turn green with jealousy if you like, but it’s true for all that. She’d rather run a mile barefoot to kiss his little finger than she would be carried in a coach-and-four to marry you. So there, you put that in your pipe and smoke it, Mr. Rock!” And she retired, slamming the office and kitchen doors behind her. When her just wrath against Samuel had subsided, Mrs. Gillingwater considered the position, and since she must get money by hook or by crook, she determined to renew her attack upon Henry, this time by letter. Accordingly she wrote a long and rambling epistle, wherein among other things she accused him of the abduction of her niece, mildly suggesting even that he had murdered her in order to hide his misdeeds. The letter ended with a threat that she would publish his true “karacter” from one end of the county to the other unless the sum of ten pounds was immediately forthcoming. In a few days the answer came; but on opening it Mrs. Gillingwater discovered, to her disgust and dismay, that it was from a firm of lawyers, who informed her in the most pointed language that if any further attempt was made to blackmail their client she would be prosecuted with the utmost rigour of the law.