“I can’t do that,” said the girl, “because he—­the man who did it—­was kind to us—­kind to Granny and me.  If I tell the police, they will go after him, and perhaps find him, and—­and hang him.  Oh, no,” and she shook her head again with decision, “I could not do that.”

Max was silent for a few moments, looking at her for the first few seconds with pity and then with suspicion.

“Why do you tell all this to me, then—­a stranger—­if you’re so afraid of the police finding out anything about it?”

The girl did not answer for a moment.  She seemed puzzled to answer the question.  At last she said: 

“I didn’t mean to.  When I saw you first, at the wharf, at the back there, I just looked at you and hid myself again.  And then I thought to myself that as you were a gentleman perhaps I might dare to ask you what I did.”

Max, not unnaturally, grew more doubtful still.  This apparently deserted building, which he was asked to enter by the back way, might be a thievish den of the worst possible character, and this girl, innocent as she certainly looked, might be a thieves’ decoy.  Something in his face or in his manner must have betrayed his thoughts to the shrewd Londoner; for she suddenly drew back, uttering a little cry of horror.  Without another word she turned and slunk back along the passage and into the street.

Now, if Max had been a little older, or a little more prudent, if he had indeed been anything but a reckless young rascal with a taste for exciting adventure, he would have taken this opportunity of getting away from such a very questionable neighborhood.  But, in the first place, he was struck by the girl’s story, which seemed to fit in only too well with what he knew; and in the second place, he was interested in the girl herself, the refinement of whose face and manner, in these dubious surroundings, had impressed him as much as the expression of horror on her face and the agony of cold which had caused her teeth to chatter and her limbs to tremble.

Surely, he thought, the suspicions he had for a moment entertained about her were incorrect.  He began to feel that he could not go away without making an effort to ascertain if there were any truth in her story.

He went along the passage and got back to the wharf by the same means as before.  Making his way round the pile of timber upon which he had first seen the girl, he discovered a little lane, partly between and partly over the planks, which he promptly followed in the hope of coming in sight of her again.

And, crouching under the wall of a ruinous outhouse, in an attitude expressive of the dejection of utter abandonment, was the white-faced girl.

The discovery was enough for Max.  All considerations of prudence, of caution, crumbled away under the influence of the intense pity he felt for the forlorn creature.

“Look here,” said he, “I’ll go in, if you like.  Have you got a light?”