"We are not children, you and I," he said. "Why should we let a boy like Engleton play with us? Why do we not let him have the issue before him in black and white? We say to him now--'Sign this paper, pledge your word of honour, and you may go.' He declines. He declines because the alternative of staying where he is is endurable. I propose that we substitute another alternative. Drink your wine, De la Borne. This is a chill house of yours, and one loses courage here. Drink your wine, and think of what I have said." Cecil set down his glass empty. "Well," he said, "what other alternative do you propose?" "Can't you see?" Forrest answered. "We cannot keep Engleton shut up for ever. I grant you that that is impossible. But if he declines to behave like a reasonable person, we can threaten him with an alternative which I do not think he would have the courage to face." "You mean?" Cecil gasped. "I mean," Forrest answered, "what your grandfather would have told him, or your great grandfather, in half a dozen words weeks ago. At full tide there is sea enough to drown a dozen such as he within a few yards of where he lies. Why should we keep him carefully and safe, knowing that the moment he steps back into life you and I are doomed men?" Cecil drew a little breath and lifted his hand to his forehead. He was surprised to find it wet. All the time he was gazing at Forrest with fascinated eyes. "Look here," he said, in a hoarse whisper, "we mustn't talk like this. Engleton will turn round in a day or two. People would think, if they heard us, that we were planning a murder." "In a woman's decalogue," Forrest said, "there is no sin save the sin of being found out. Why not in ours? No one ever had such a chance of getting rid of a dangerous enemy. The whole thing is in our hands. We could never be found out, never even questioned. If, by one chance in a thousand, his body is ever recovered, what more natural? Men have been drowned before on the marshes here many a time." "Go on!" Cecil said. "You have thought this out. Tell me exactly what you propose." "I propose," Forrest answered, "that we narrow the issues, and that we put them before him in plain English, now--to-night--while the courage is still with us. It must be silence or death. I tell you frankly how it is with me. I would as soon press a pistol to my forehead and pull the trigger as have this boy go back into the world and tell his story. For you, too, it would be ruin."