“But I won’t be swindled in this way!” cried old Mr Homfray.
“Act just as you wish—but remember, if you make any move it will be the worse for you. Gordon is not a man to stick at trifles,” the woman said.
“I know that,” said the rector.
“And it is a very ugly skeleton you have in your cupboard,” remarked the woman with a sinister smile.
“The property at Totnes is worth over four thousand pounds,” he said.
“You have only to repay the money with interest and the matter is ended.”
Mr Homfray paused.
Then, looking straight into the woman’s evil face, he said:
“It is you, woman, who once swore to ruin me because I would not assist you in that vile plot of yours! You thought to trap me, a minister of the Church, into assisting you to entice that fly into the web you had so cunningly spun for him. But you were mistaken! I saw through your evil game, and because I did so you vowed vengeance upon me. And this is the hour of your triumph!” he added bitterly in a deep, hoarse voice, and one quite unusual to him.
The woman’s thin lips were pressed together, but she made no immediate reply.