Carrie,
which Max had taken time to discover, had struck Doreen at once. Carrie
would have denied the allegation, but Max caught her arm and stopped
her.

"Quite true," said he quietly. "This is the way, Miss Horne, to your
brother's room."

Doreen was quick enough to see that there was some little mystery about
the relationship which she had divined, and she went rapidly past her
brother without asking any questions.

It was about two hours after Dudley's arrival that Carrie, now installed
in the sick-room, came to the door and asked for Max. Her face was rigid
with a great terror. She seemed at first unable to utter the words which
were on her tongue. At last she said, in a voice which sounded hard and
unlike her own:

"Don't send for a nurse. I must stay with him. He is delirious, and I
have just learned--from him--from his ravings, a secret--a terrible
secret--one that must not be known!"

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE BLUE-EYED NURSE.

It was at the door of Dudley's sick-room that Carrie informed Max that
she had learned a secret from the lips of the sick man, and Max, by a
natural impulse of curiosity, nay, more, a deep interest, pushed the
door gently open.

Dudley's voice could be heard muttering below his breath words which Max
could not catch.

But Carrie pulled the young man sharply back by the arm into the
corridor, and shut the door behind her. Her face was full of
determination.

"No," said she, "not even you."

Max drew himself up, offended.

"I should think you might trust me," he said, stiffly. "The doctor will
have to hear when he comes. And the secret, whatever it is, will be
safer with me than with old Haselden."

Carrie smiled a little, and shook her head.

"The doctor," said she, "wouldn't be able to make head or tail of what
he says. Now, you would."

"And if I did, what of that? Don't I know everything, or almost
everything, already? Didn't I bring him down here, to my father's house,
after I knew that there was a warrant out against him? What better proof
do you want that the secret would be safe with me?"

But Carrie would not give way. Without entering into an argument, she
stood before him with a set look of obstinacy in her mouth and eyes,
slowly shaking her head once or twice as he went on with his
persuasions.

"Do you think I should make a wrong use of the secret?" asked Max,
impatiently.

"Oh, no."

"Do you think it would turn me against him?"

But at this q