“We shall see about that, Miss Arnell,” returned her captor. “I think it only too likely that he will. There is an exceedingly strong case against him; he has acted most suspiciously, and, when once the police lay their hands on a man, they are not very ready to let him go.”

“But in any case, I do not see what on earth is the use of all this discussion of something that will in all probability never happen,” Violet objected.

“Take it as something purely hypothetical, Miss Arnell,” urged the man. “I assure you that your attitude on this matter is highly important.”

Violet suppressed an inclination to giggle. In spite of the terrible seriousness of her position, the thought of discussing the love-affair which had given her such joy—and above all, of discussing it with a man she scarcely knew; whose very name, even, she had never heard—seemed crazily absurd.

“What do you want to know?” she asked.

“Merely what would be your view of marriage if Mr. Baker did not exist,” he explained.

“If Harry died, I should have no desire to marry,” she said with quiet dignity. “He is the only man I have ever cared for at all deeply; and I do not suppose that I shall ever again love anyone as I love him.”

“So? That is rather a pity,” he commented.

“Why a pity?” asked Violet. “After all, as I said just now, it is in the last degree unlikely that he should be found guilty; so really the question of what I should want to do in the event of his death does not arise.”

“But,” he said quietly, “you have to put Mr. Harry Baker right out of your life.”

“Put him out of my life?” Violet laughed aloud. “My dear sir, you don’t know what you are talking about. Harry and I will be married within a few months—as soon as we decently can, without showing any sort of disrespect to my father’s memory.”

“Alive or dead,” he persisted, “you will not marry Harry Baker.”

“And who am I to marry, pray?” she asked, with some hauteur, the question being rather a rhetorical one than one where an answer was either required or expected.

“Mr. Moses Moss,” answered the other, and again she laughed aloud.

“If Mr. Moss were the only man on earth, I should go to my grave an old maid,” she said. “Besides, why should Mr. Moss want to marry me?”

“I do not know,” said her captor, “that Mr. Moss has even considered marrying you. But I do know that he will do so when I order him to.”

“When you order him to?”

“Precisely.”

“But what power have you that you can order other people’s lives?” she asked, and she saw the dangerous glitter of madness come into his eyes.