Carrie interrupted him, breaking in upon him abruptly: 

“What things?”

“Murders, and—­”

“The murder was done by your friend, not by us.”

“‘Us?’ Surely you don’t identify yourself with these people?”

“I do.  They are my friends—­the only friends I have.”

“But they are thieves, blackmailers!” said Max, saying not what he knew but what he guessed.

“What have they stolen from you?  What harm have they done to you or anybody that you know of?  All this is because my Granny didn’t approve of my having a stranger in, and had you shut into a dark room to give you a fright.”

“But you forget you said just now you had got me out of a nice mess.”

“I—­I meant that you were frightened.”

“And with good reason.  After what I saw and heard in that room, I should be worse than a criminal myself if I didn’t inform the police about the existence of the place.  I believe it’s one of the vilest dens in London.”

Carrie was silent.  She did not attempt to ask him what it was that he had heard and seen while in that room.  And Max felt his heart sink within him.  He would have had her question, protest, deny.  And instead she seemed tacitly to take the truth of all his accusations for granted.

“Don’t you see,” he presently went on, almost in a coaxing tone, “that it’s for your own good that you should have to go away?  I won’t believe—­I can’t—­that you like this underground, hole-and-corner existence, this life that is dishonest all through.  Come, now, confess that you don’t like it—­that you only live like this because you can’t help it, or because you think you can’t help it—­and I’ll forgive you.”

There was a long pause.  Then he heard a little, hard, cynical laugh.  He tried hard to see her face; but although he caught now and then a gleam of the great eyes, the wonderful eyes that had fascinated him, he could not distinguish the expression, hardly even the outline of her features.

When she at last spoke, it was in a reckless, willful tone.

“Forgive me!  What have you to forgive, except that I was fool enough to ask you into the house?  And if you’ve suffered for that, it seems I shall have to, too, in the long run; and I’m not going to say I don’t like the life, for I like it better than any I’ve lived before.”

“What!”

“Yes, yes, I tell you.  I’m not a heroine, ready to drudge away my life in any round of dull work that’ll keep body and soul together.  I’d rather have the excitement of living what you call a hole-and-corner life than spend my days stitch—­stitch—­stitching—­dust—­dust—­dusting, as I used to have to do with Miss Aldridge, as I should have to do if I went away from here.”

“Well, but there are other things you could do,” pleaded Max, with vague thoughts of setting his own sisters to work to find this erratic child of the riverside some more seemly mode of life than her present one.