“Very well, then, here you are,” and he produced the money. “But mind, I give you this for the sake of old associations, little as you deserve it; and if there is any more trouble you will get nothing further from me. One more thing: I expect you to hold your tongue about poor Joan’s illness and her address especially to Sir Henry Graves and Mr. Rock. Do you understand me?”
“Perfectly, sir.”
“Then remember what I say, and good morning; if you want to communicate with me again, you had better write.”
Mrs. Gillingwater departed humbly enough, dropping all awkward courtesy at the door.
“Like the month of March, she came in like a lion and has gone out like a lamb,” reflected Mr. Levinger as the door closed behind her. “She is a dangerous woman, but luckily I have her in hand. A horrible woman I call her. It makes me shudder to think of the fate of anybody who fell into the power of such a person. And now about this poor girl. If she were to die many complications would be avoided; but the thing is to keep her alive, for in the other event I should feel as though her blood were on my hands. Much as I hate it, I think that I will go to town and see after her. Emma is to start for home to-morrow, and I can easily make an excuse that I have come to fetch her. Let me see: there is a train at three o’clock that would get me to town at six. I could dine at the hotel, go to see about Joan afterwards, and telegraph to Emma that I would fetch her in time for the eleven o’clock train to-morrow morning. That will fit in very well.”
Two hours later Mr. Levinger was on his road to London.
Mrs. Gillingwater returned to Bradmouth, if not exactly jubilant, at least in considerably better spirits than she had left it. She had wrung ten pounds out of Mr. Levinger, which in itself was something of a triumph; also she had hopes of other pickings, for now she knew Joan’s address, which it seemed was a very marketable commodity. At present she had funds in hand, and therefore there was no need to approach Samuel Rock which indeed she feared to do in the face of Mr. Levinger’s prohibition; still it comforted her not a little to think that those five-and-twenty sovereigns also were potentially her own.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE PRICE OF INNOCENT BLOOD.
A month went by, and at the end of it every farthing of Mr. Levinger’s ten pounds was spent, for the most part in satisfying creditors who either had sued, or were threatening to sue, for debts owing to them. Finding herself once more without resources, Mrs. Gillingwater concluded that it was time to deal with Samuel Rock, taking the chance of her breach of confidence being found out and visited upon her by Mr. Levinger. Accordingly, towards dusk one evening— for she did not wish her errand to be observed by the curious—Mrs. Gillingwater started upon her mission to Moor Farm.
Moor Farm is situated among the wind-torn firs that line the ridge of ground which separates the sea heath between Bradmouth and Ramborough from the meadows that stretch inland behind it. Perhaps in the whole county there is no more solitary or desolate building, with its outlook on to the heath and the chain of melancholy meres where Samuel had waylaid Joan, beyond which lies the sea. The view to the west is more cheerful, indeed, for here are the meadows where runs the Brad; but, as though its first architect had determined that its windows should look on nothing pleasant, the house is cut off from this prospect by the straggling farm buildings and the fir plantation behind them.