who do here? Who are the people who live in that shut-up house,
besides you and your Granny, as you call her?"

"I--mustn't tell you. They don't belong to any county families. Is that
enough?"

"Why are you so different now from what you were when we were sitting by
the fire in there? You are not like the same girl! Are you the same
girl?"

And Max affected to feel, or, perhaps, really felt, a doubt which
necessitated his coming a little closer to Carrie, without, however,
being able to see much more of her face than before.

"I'm the same girl," replied Carrie, shortly, "whom you threatened with
the police."

"Come, is that fair? Did I threaten _you_ with the police?"

"You threatened _us_. It's the same thing. Well, it doesn't matter.
They won't find out anything more than we choose!"

She said this defiantly, ostentatiously throwing in her lot with the
dubious characters from whom Max would fain have dissociated her.

"Do you forget," he asked, suddenly, "that these precious friends of
yours left you, forgot you, for two whole days--left you to the company
of a dead man, to a chance stranger? Is that what you call
kindness--friendship--affection?"

She made no answer.

A moment later a voice was heard calling softly: "Carrie?"

The girl came out of the shelter of the eaves, and Max at last caught
sight of her face. It was sad, pale, altogether different from what the
reckless, defiant, rather hard tones of her latest words would have led
him to expect. A haunting face, Max thought.

"I must go," said she. "Good-bye."

"Carrie!" repeated the voice, calling again, impatiently.

Max knew, although he could not see the owner of the voice, that it was
"Dick." It was, he thought, a coarse voice, full of intimations of the
swaggering self-assertion of the low-class Londoner, who thinks himself
the whole world's superior.

Carrie called out:

"All right; I'm coming!" And then she turned to Max. "You are to forget
this place, and me," said she, in a whisper.

The next moment Max found himself alone.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE SEQUEL TO A TRAGEDY.

It was on the evening after that of his expedition to Limehouse that Max
Wedmore found himself back again at the modest iron gate of the park at
The Beeches. He had not sent word what time he should arrive, preferring
not to have to meet Doreen by herself, with her inevitable questions,
sooner than he could help.

As he shut the gate behind him, and hurr