And at the same moment a voice whispered: 

“Sh-sh!”

Very gradually the door was opened a little farther.  A hand caught the sleeve of his coat.  It was quite dark outside the door—­as dark as in the front room.

“Sh-sh!” was whispered again in his ear, as he felt himself drawn through the narrow aperture.

He made no attempt to resist, for he knew, he felt, that the hand was Carrie’s, and that this was rescue.

When he had passed into the second room, Max was stopped by a warning pressure of the hand upon his arm, and then he felt the touch of Carrie’s lips upon his ear, so close did she come before she uttered these words: 

“Don’t make a sound.  Come slowly, very quietly, very carefully.  You’re all right.”

He heard her close the door through which he had just come, and then he let her lead him, in silence and in the darkness, until they reached another door.  This she opened with the same caution, and Max, passing through with her, found himself, as he knew by the little step down onto the brick floor, in the outhouse.

“Who’s that?” said a man’s voice, startling Max, and confirming in an instant the suspicions he had had that the outrage to which he had been subjected was the work of a gang.

“It’s me—­Carrie,” said the girl.

And opening the outer door, she drove Max out with a gentle push, and closed it between herself and him.

“Thank God!” was his first muttered exclamation, as he felt the welcome rush of cold night air and felt himself free again.

But the very next moment he turned back instinctively to the door and attempted to push it open.  The latch was gone; he had broken it himself.  But the door was now locked against him.

Of course, this circumstance greatly increased the desire he had for one more interview, however short, with Carrie.  He wanted to understand her position.  Too much interested in the girl to wish to doubt her, grateful to her for contriving his escape, Max yet found it difficult to reconcile her actions with the honesty her words had caused him to believe in.

However, finding that the door was inexorably closed upon him, he saw that there was nothing for it but to take himself off into safer if less interesting regions as quickly as possible.  So he got out on the wharf, through and over the timber, and was on the point of crossing to the door in the fence, when he saw a man come quickly through, lock the door behind him and make his way through the piles of timber with the easy, stealthy step of a man accustomed to do this sort of thing, and to do it at night.

Before the man got near him, Max, who had stepped back a little under the wall of one of the outhouses, was sure that the newcomer was of doubtful character.  When the latter got out into the light thrown by the street-lamp outside the wharf, this impression was confirmed.