"Who can make me speak?" she cried, more angry from her fear.

"The law. When we have reached a certain stage in the inquiry, we shall
be able to compel you to speak."

"I thought you couldn't move a step without me?"

Iver was rather set back, but he braved it out.

"The difficulties are immensely increased, but they're not insuperable,"
he said.

"I shan't stay to be questioned and bullied. I shall go abroad."

Iver looked at the Major; the Major returned his glance; they were both
resolute men.

"No, you won't go away," declared Iver slowly.

The Imp was frightened; she was an ignorant young woman in a land of
whose laws she knew nothing. Neeld would have liked to suggest
something soothing about the liberty of the individual and the Habeas
Corpus Act. But he dared show no sympathy--beyond nodding at her
unobserved. The nod told her nothing.

"You'll stop me?" Still she tried to sneer defiantly.

Another glance passed between Iver and Duplay. A shrewd observer might
have interpreted it as meaning, "Even if we can't do it, she'll think we
can."

"We shall," said the Major, executing the bluff on behalf of himself and
his partner.

The Imp thought of crying--not for her uncle--which would be
hopeless--but for Iver. She concluded it would be hopeless there too;
Iver would not heed tears in business hours, however tender-hearted he
might be in private life. So she laughed again instead. But the laugh
was a failure, and Iver was sharp enough to see it.

"In this country people aren't allowed to play fast and loose in this
fashion," he remarked. "I'll tell you one way in which we can make you
speak. I have only to go to Lord Tristram and tell him you have spread
these reports, that you have made and repeated these imputations on his
birth and on his title. What will he do? Can he rest content without
disproving them at law? I say he can't. In those proceedings you would
be compelled to speak. I must assume you would tell the truth. I refuse
to suppose you would commit perjury."

"I should hold my tongue," said Mina.

"Then you'd be sent to prison for contempt of court."

The bluff worked well. Mina knew nothing at all of what Harry Tristram
would do, or might do, or must do, of what the law would, or might, or
might not do, in the circumstances supposed. And Iver spoke as though
he knew everything, with a weighty confidence, with an admirable air of
considered candor. She was no match for him; she grew