"What do you want?"
"We'll come to that presently. Our business has to do with your husband, Mr. Hill"--Father Don looked at the shivering wretch.
"I never harmed you--I don't know you," mumbled Hill. "Go away--leave me alone--what do you want?"
"We'll never get on in this way.--No, you don't," added Don, as Mrs. Hill tried to steal to the door, "Go and sit down by your good husband," and he enforced this request by pointing a revolver.
"I am not to be frightened by melodrama," said Mrs. Hill scornfully.
"Sit down, Sarah--sit down," said Hill, his teeth chattering.
The woman could not help casting a contemptuous look on the coward, even though she fancied, she owed so much to him. But, as she was a most sensible woman, she saw that it would be as well to obey. "I am ready to hear," she said, sitting by Hill, and putting her strong arm round the shivering, miserable creature.
"I'll come to the point at once," said Don, speaking to Hill, "as we have not much time to lose. Mr. Hill, you have forty thousand pounds' worth of diamonds here. Give them up!"
Hill turned even paler than he was. "How do you know that?" he asked.
"It can't be true," put in Mrs. Hill spiritedly. "If you are talking of Mr. Strode's diamonds, my husband hasn't got them."