“Oh, yes, but I shall!” retorted she.  And as she spoke, the pink color, the absence of which made her usually look so delicate, came into her cheeks.  “And you must remember that I shall be better fed, better clothed then.  I am not really weak at all.”

“I repeat—­you will never be strong enough for a nurse.  Better take my advice and marry me, Carrie!”

But at that, a sudden impulse of hot anger gave the girl the necessary strength to snatch her hand away from him.  She faced him fiercely.

“What!  To be looked at always as your father, your mother, look at me now?  As if I were a thief who must be watched, lest she should steal something?  They needn’t be afraid either, if only they knew!  And before I go I’ll tell them.  Yes, I’ll tell them what a mistake they make in thinking I want to take their son, their precious son, away from them!  That for their son!”

And Carrie, very ungratefully, to be sure, held her right hand close to the face of Max and snapped her fingers scornfully.  She had seen Mrs. Wedmore’s eyes over the half blind of one of the windows, and the minx thought this little scene would be a wholesome lesson.

But Max, following the direction of Carrie’s eyes, had also seen the watching face, and a manful spirit of defiance on the one hand, of passion on the other, moved him to show both Carrie and his mother how things were going with him.

Seizing the girl round the waist when her little spurt of defiance was scarcely over, he held her head with his disengaged hand and pressed upon her eyes, her cheeks and her lips a dozen hot kisses.

“There!” said he, when at last he let her go, and she, staggering, blushing, ran toward the shelter of the house.  “That’s what you get for being ungrateful, you little cat.  And it’s nothing to what you’ll get from my mother, who’s sure to say it’s all your fault.  And so—­” roared he up the stairs after her, as she reached the top, “so it is, of course!”

But Carrie found a refuge inside the sick-room, where Dudley, who had passed a better night than they had even hoped, was now lying with closed eyes, quiet and apparently calm.

It was upon Max himself, for a wonder, that the vials of the family wrath were poured.  Mrs. Wedmore, happening to meet her husband while the last grievance against the girl was fresh, and before she had had the time to meditate on the result of a premature disclosure, made known to him the outrage of which she had been a witness, taking care to dwell upon the audacity of the girl in pursuing and provoking Max.

Mr. Wedmore listened in silence, and then said, curtly: 

“Where is he now?  Send him to me.”

Max, bent upon making himself as conspicuous and, therefore, as offensive as possible, was whistling in the hall at the moment.  And there was a defiant note in his very whistling which worked his father up to boiling point.  Mr. Wedmore sprang off his chair and dashed open the door.