you want to get away? Always to get away?"
she asked, angrily. "That's what makes me so mad! Why do you try to get
out of the business in the way you do? Sneaking out of it, as if it had
nothing to do with you? Why don't you throw in your lot with me and go
away with me, as I wished you to, as you once were ready to do?"

Dudley looked searchingly into the wrinkled face.

"I was never ready to go," said he. "I did affect to be ready. I was
ready to go as far as Liverpool with you, to get you safely out of the
country, out of danger to me and to yourself. But I should never have
gone farther than that. I never meant to. I would run any risk rather
than that."

Mr. Higgs never blinked. Staring steadily up into his face, with a
malignity more pronounced than ever, she asked, in a mocking tone:

"Why? Why?"

Dudley was silent.

Mrs. Higgs laughed, and shook her head with a look of unspeakable
cunning.

"You needn't answer," said she, dryly, "for I know the reason. You won't
leave England because of a girl."

Dudley did not start, but the quiver which passed over his features
betrayed him.

"Ha, ha!" laughed Mrs. Higgs. "It's not much use telling me a fib when I
want to know anything. You wouldn't own up, so I went ferreting on my
own account, and I found out what I wanted. You're in love with a girl
named Wedmore--Doreen Wedmore--and it's on her account that you won't
leave England, and throw in your lot with me, like a man!"

Dudley's face had grown gray with fear. When he spoke it was in a
changed tone. He had lost his confidence, his defiant robustness. He
almost seemed to be begging for mercy, as he answered:

"I don't deny it. I don't deny anything. I did care for a girl; I do
now. But I have given her up. I was bound to, with this ghastly business
hanging to my heels. I shall never see her again."

Mrs. Higgs cut in with decision:

"No, that you won't. I'll answer for it!"

Dudley looked at her, but did not dare to speak. There was something in
the spiteful tones of her voice, when she mentioned Doreen, which filled
him with vague dread. It was in a subdued and conciliatory voice that he
presently tried to turn the conversation to another subject.

"Who was the girl you sent this evening, the girl who brought your
message?"

"Nobody of any consequence," answered Mrs. Higgs, as if the subject was
not to her taste. "A girl who lives here. We call her Carrie."

"And her other name?"

His tone betr