He heard her draw her breath hard. She stood before him white and trembling, her eyes filled with burning fire.
"Say, Ida, couldn't you manage somehow to get the rest of the money—the five thousand?"
"No!" she answered, pitifully.
"That's only a bluff," he cried. "But it won't work with me!"
"You have sworn eternal silence now!" she cried; "you have given your oath, and you dare not break it. I can not raise any more money!"
"Perhaps you will pay that amount for a little secret which I possess, my lady," he said, mockingly.
"There is nothing more you could tell me that would interest me."
"We shall see," he replied, sneeringly.
He pulled from under his coat a dark-lantern, shot back the slide, and a flood of light illumined the scene. He drew a package from his pocket and unwrapped it. Ida watched him like one in a dream.
Suddenly an awful cry broke from her lips. One by one he took from the package the articles of clothing that had been worn by the little child he had secured from the village merchant's wife.