lips and eyes a final warning
against the girl. Then, with a nod, he went out, closing the door behind
him.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE SWORD FALLS.

When Max turned, he found that Carrie had retreated within the door of
the sitting-room. He followed her into the room.

"I hope he'll give us the full ten minutes," said he, "for I had no
luncheon to-day, and when I'm hungry I always get very cross. Is that
your experience?"

Carrie looked at the table with a strange smile.

"You ought to know," said she.

His face showed that he had not forgotten.

"Those biscuits!" said he. "I remember. Does your granny treat you
better now?"

Carrie's face grew gloomy and cold. And Max noticed that, thin as she
had been when he saw her last, she was much thinner now. The outline of
her cheek was pathetically pinched, almost sunken.

"No. Worse," she said at last, in a low voice.

"You don't mean that she--_starves_ you?"

To his dismay, he saw the tears welling up in the girl's blue eyes,
which looked preternaturally large in her wasted face.

"Pretty nearly," said she.

Max stared at her for about the space of a second; then he went behind
her, put his hands lightly on her shoulders and inducted her into the
chair Dudley had placed for himself at the dinner-table.

"It is evident," said he, gravely, "that Providence has appointed me
purveyor of food to you, for this is the second time, within a
comparatively short acquaintance, that I have had the honor of providing
you with a repast. This time it's quite in the manner of 'The Arabian
Nights,' isn't it?"

It was indeed a fairy-tale banquet, this dinner of steak and chip
potatoes, followed by _meringues a la creme_, and finishing up with
bread and butter and cheese and celery.

There was enough for two, the only drawback being a deficiency of
plates, which Max put right, in homely fashion, by eating his share from
the dish. Such a tragedy it was to him to find a beautiful girl who was
hungry, actually hungry from want of food, that the appetite he had
talked so much about failed him, and he found it difficult to eat his
share and to keep up the light tone of talk which he judged to be
necessary to the situation.

He wanted to ask her a hundred questions about the people at the wharf
and the awful thing which had happened there; but none of these subjects
seemed appropriate to the dinner-table, and Max decided to leave them to
another and a better opportunity.