"You suspect him, then--" said the banker, breaking off his sentence because perplexed how to end it. "I suspect him of nothing at present," was the reply. "This trinket may have been stolen from him and lost by another, I have that to find out. If it be proved that Mr. Colville lost this locket in your hall last night, my theory of a projected theft will not hold water. A gentleman of his wealth and position would not need to descend to that phase of crime. Some other object must have actuated him." He paused, drawing on his gloves. "There is one thing more," he resumed. "Keep this mutual discovery we have made a dead secret until I give you leave to reveal it. Do not even mention it to your daughter or to Mr. Darling. He does not believe the theory I advanced last night. I read it in his expressive features. He thinks he really saw a spirit. Let him think so still; I am gathering the tangled ends of a fearful mystery in my hands. But if human skill can unravel it I will not fail to do so. Good-day, Mr. Lawrence." He tripped airily away down the street with the air and manner of a well-bred gentleman. Few who saw the well-dressed man swinging his natty little cane so jauntily and wearing that supremely indifferent air would have supposed him to be the most daring and accomplished detective in the State of New York. So thought Mr. Lawrence as he watched him walk away. CHAPTER XV. The rage of old Haidee Leveret at finding herself duped and outwitted by such a weak girl as Lily Lawrence was frightful to witness and impossible to describe. She raved, she stormed, she tore her scanty gray locks and blasphemed in the most frightful and blood-curdling terms. In vain she tried the door-handle, in vain she shook the iron bars in the window. They resisted her most vigorous efforts. In her terrible rage she fell to breaking and tearing everything in her room that could be destroyed. She threw down the dishes containing Lily's untasted dinner and shivered them into fragments. She tore off the bed-covers and rent them in pieces in the hight of her insane fury. If Lily had fallen into her cruel hands just then she would have killed her remorselessly. At length, having sated her rage momentarily by wreaking it on those poor inanimate things, she began to quiet down somewhat and to consider the situation. The enemy had worsted her, that was self-evident. Stratagem had succeeded against brute force and power. Lily Lawrence had freed herself from captivity, and there was no one to pursue her and bring her back. Old Peter was not likely to return for several hours. If Lily's strength held out she would be safe in her home ere the old man could get back to town and carry the tidings to Doctor Pratt and Harold Colville. Harold Colville had promised the old couple a most extravagant reward for the safe-keeping of his beautiful prisoner.