Mr. Lawrence was anxious at first to have these two men arrested and forced to acknowledge their guilt and return the missing body, but he yielded to Mr. Shelton's contrary persuasions on being assured that such a proceeding might result in the disastrous failure of his plan. "For though we might imprison them, Mr. Lawrence," said he, "the rigor of the law could not force them to divulge their dreadful secret unless they chose to do so. It is only too probable that they would maintain the most obstinate silence on the subject. Therefore let them go free a little longer, and let us oppose cunning to cunning, and fraud to fraud until we attain our end." The banker acquiesced, and the detective hurried away, for he was resolved that the wily schemers should not elude him again as they had certainly done on the occasion of the removal of Lily Lawrence from the Leverets' house. Once more he and his faithful colleague took up their task of espionage, but it was unavailing for weeks. Harold Colville had conceived a dim suspicion that he was watched, and was therefore doubly vigilant and wary. For more than a month he did not visit Lily, but contented himself by receiving cautious bulletins of her welfare from Doctor Heath, weekly. The messages went through the mails and were directed to a fictitious address. In these careful weeks a new scheme was revolving in Colville's brain, always fertile in evil. He was growing heartily tired and impatient at Lily's obstinacy, and was frightened lest some unforeseen accident should snatch his lovely prize from him. He began to realize that Lily would never yield her consent to become his wife, yet he swore to himself that he would never give her up. He determined, therefore, on a forced marriage. "What do you think of it?" said he to his familiar, Pratt, after detailing his fears and anxieties to that worthy, and stating his final resolution. "Would that do?" "Excellently well," said Pratt, who began to feel as anxious as Colville about the obstinacy of their prisoner. "It is the best thing we can do. Our position is becoming environed with difficulties. If we had not removed her from Leveret's just in the nick of time, that detective, Shelton, who found the bodies of Haidee and Peter, must inevitably have discovered her, and ere this hour we must both have seen the inside of a prison. Yes, it would be infinitely wiser to force a marriage with the perverse little jade and carry her off to Europe if need be. Seeing herself thus irrevocably bound to you, she would understand that her only hope of happiness lay in reconciliation and she would act accordingly." "Marry it shall be then," said Colville, with a brightening face. "But when, and by whom? Could we find a priest who would read the ceremony over us under the peculiar circumstances of the case?"