“No, ma’am, I mean her no harm, unless it’s a harm to want to make her my wife; but it would have been all one to you if I meant to murder her and you knew it, so your sin is just as great, and verily the betrayers of innocent blood shall have their reward,” and he pointed at her with his long fingers. “I’ve got what I want,” he went on “though I’ve had to pay a lot of money for it; but I tell you that it won’t do you any good; you might as well throw it into the mere and yourself after it, as expect to get any profit out of that forty pounds, the price of innocent blood the price of innocent blood.” Then once more Samuel pointed at her and grinned maliciously, till to her fancy his face looked like that of the stone demon above him. By now Mrs. Gillingwater was so frightened that for a moment or two she hesitated as to whether it would not be wiser to return the money and free herself from the burden of a dreadful thought. In the end her avarice prevailed, as might have been expected, and without another word she rose and walked towards the front door, which Samuel unlocked and opened for her. “Good-bye,” he said, as she went down the passage. “You’ve done me a good turn, ma’am, and now I’m sure that I’ll marry Joan; but for all that a day shall come when you will wish that your hand had been cut off before you touched those forty sovereigns: you remember my words when you lie a-dying, Mrs. Gillingwater, with all your deeds behind you and all the doom before.” Then the woman fled through the storm and the night, more terrified than ever she had been in her life’s day, nor did the gold that she clasped to her heart avail to comfort her. For Rock had spoken truth; it was the price of innocent blood, and she knew it. CHAPTER XXIX. THROUGH THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW. Upon his arrival in town, Mr. Levinger drove to a private hotel in Jermyn Street, where he was in the habit of staying on the rare occasions when he visited London. He dressed and dined; then, having posted a letter to Emma stating that he would call for her and Miss Graves on the following morning in time to catch the eleven o’clock train, and escort them home, he ordered a hansom and told the cabman to take him to 8, Kent Street. “It’s many a year since I have been in this place,” he thought to himself with a sigh, as the cab turned out of the Edgware Road, “and it doesn’t seem much changed. I wonder how she came to go to another house. Well, I shall know the worst, or the best of it, presently.” And again he sighed as the horse stopped with a jerk in front of No. 8. [Illustration: ] ‘You remember my words when you lie a-dying.’ Telling the man to wait, he rang the bell. The door was opened by Mrs. Bird herself, who, seeing an elderly gentleman in a fur coat, dropped a polite courtesy. “Is this Mrs. Bird’s house, pray?” he asked in his gentle voice. “Yes, sir; I am Mrs. Bird.”