"How do you know that I will let you go?" asked Haidee, tauntingly. "This is a fine old house in which to hold you prisoner—it has old stone dungeons, iron-barred windows."
Mrs. Vance shuddered, but she answered in as fearless a tone as possible:
"You have no interest in making a prisoner of me, for in that case you would get no profit out of your secret. You will not kill the goose that lays the golden eggs."
"No, no," chuckled Haidee, "but perhaps you are laying some plan against me—you wish to have me arrested."
"It is not likely. My safety depends on yours—no, no, you need fear nothing from me. Come, come, it grows late. I am very thirsty. Give me a drink of water and let me go."
The water was procured, and the visitor drank and departed.
She walked hastily over the lonely road, passed the scattered houses, and then hailing an empty hack that was passing, entered it and was driven rapidly homeward, her thoughts, if possible, being more gloomy than before, for now the dread of old Peter Leveret was added to her fears of his wife.
She had started out to follow old Haidee with black murder in her heart. She had not believed in the story of the sick husband and children, but had expected to find the old crone alone.
Heaven knows what would have happened if she had; but instead she found the strong, hideous old man, whose leering looks had struck terror to her heart, and she now believed that he also was cognizant of the fatal secret which was fraught with such danger to her.
Her thoughts and feelings were anything but enviable ones as she walked up the steps of the brown-stone palace she called her home.