'We want money and we're not afraid of anything now you are here.' And without heeding my exclamation of horror, they coolly told me that they would wait where they were till the household was asleep, when they would expect me to show them the way to the silver closet or what was better, the safe or wherever it was Mr.
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.