"Oh, Miss Ethel, please don't," and Hetty's voice was almost a sob. "I—I—am almost ashamed of myself, but look, how poor I am, and these shabby clothes, too; I've not been in service since I left you, and I'm out of money, and I've gone hungry many a time. Oh, please, please, give me a thousand dollars," and Hetty suddenly fell on her knees and plucked piteously at Ethel's gown, adding: "It looks ungrateful in me I know, but I love you, and I never would have come only they made me—No, no, I don't mean that—my poor head is dazed. It was the dreadful poverty made me come."
"A hundred dollars would relieve your poverty, Hetty," the young girl said, coldly and suspiciously.
"Oh, no, Miss Ethel, not a cent less than one thousand. It's the price of your safety. Only give me that, and no one shall bother you afterward. You needn't fear the secret any more after that price is paid."
"But, Hetty, there's nothing to fear in that secret," cried Ethel, frantically explaining how the rope had broken. "I was half crazed with grief at first, and after my sister was saved we agreed between us that nothing need be said. I was ashamed of having gone to the old fortune-teller," she said, remembering with a keen pang the old hag's prediction: "You will sin and you will suffer."
But Hetty remained sullenly unconvinced, and answered boldly:
"You were certainly afraid of something, Miss Ethel, or you would not be keeping it so dark. And, anyway, you wouldn't like to be exposed after all these months, would you?"
"No, no," admitted Ethel miserably, and in the end she agreed to pay the price demanded for the keeping of her secret.