Blake kept his money. I saw they took me
for a servant, as indeed I was, and for some minutes I managed to
preserve that position in their eyes. But when in a sudden burst of
rage at my refusal to help them, they pushed me aside and hurried to
the door with the manifest intention of going below, I forgot
prudence in my fears and uttered some wild appeal to them not to do
injury to any one in the house for it was my husband's. Of course
that disclosure had its natural effect.
"They stopped, but only to beset me with questions till the whole
truth came out. I could not have committed a worse folly than thus
taking them into my confidence. Instantly the advantages to be gained
by using my secret connection with so wealthy a man for the purpose of
cowering me and blackmailing him, seemed to strike both their minds
at once, slow as they usually are to receive impressions. The silver-
closet and money-safe sank to a comparatively insignificant position
in their eyes, and to get me out of the house, and with my happiness
at stake, treat with the honorable man who notwithstanding his
non-approval of me as a woman, still regarded me as his lawfully
wedded wife, became in their eyes a thing of such wonderful promise
they were willing to run any and every risk to test its value.
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