Max glanced at his sister’s face, and then looked away.  He had not known till that moment, when he caught the tender look of anxiety in her big brown eyes, how strong her love of Dudley was.  An impulse of anger against the man seized him, and he frowned.

“Why, surely you know already that he doesn’t care for you, in the way he ought to care, or he would never have neglected you, never have given you up!” said he, ferociously.

“I’m not so sure about that.  At any rate I want to know what you found out.  Don’t think I’m not strong enough to bear it, whatever it is!”

“Well, then, I’ll tell you.  He is off his head.  He has got mixed up in some way with a set of people no sane man would trust himself with for half an hour, and—­and—­and—­well, they say—­the people say he’s done something that would hang him.  There!  Is that enough for you?”

He felt that he was a brute to tell her, but he could see no other way out of the difficulty in which her own persistency had placed him.  She stared at him for a few seconds with blanched cheeks, clasping her hands.  Then she said in a whisper: 

“You don’t mean—­murder?”

Her brother’s silence gave her the answer.

There was a long pause.  Then she spoke in a changed voice, under her breath: 

“Poor Dudley!”

Max was astonished to see her take the announcement so quietly.

“Well, now you see that it is impossible to do anything for him, don’t you?”

“Indeed, I do not!” retorted Doreen, with spirit.  “We don’t know the story yet.  We don’t know whether there is any truth in it at all; or, if there is, what the difficulties were that he was in.  Look, Max.  You must remember how worried he has been lately.  I have heard him make excuses for people who did rash things, and I have always agreed with him.  You see, I knew how good-hearted he was, and I know that he would never have done anything mean or underhand or unworthy.”

“Don’t you call murder, manslaughter—­whatever it is—­unworthy?” asked Max, irritably.

“Not without knowing something about it,” answered she.  “And I think there’s generally more to be said for the man who commits murder than for any other criminal.  And—­and”—­her voice gave way and began to shake with tears—­“I don’t care what he’s done, I’m sorry for him.  I—­I want to help him, or—­or, at least, I want to see him to tell him so!”

Max was alarmed.  Knowing the spirit and courage of his brilliant sister, he was afraid lest she should conceive the idea of starting off herself on some mad enterprise; so he said hastily: 

“He’s away now, you know.  He’s gone without leaving any address.  Perhaps I was wrong, after all.  Perhaps when he comes back he will be himself again, and—­and everything will be cleared up.  We can only wait and see.”

But this lame attempt at comfort met with no warm response from his sister.  She looked at him with a poor little attempt at a contemptuous smile, and then, afraid of breaking down altogether, sprang up from the arm-chair in which she had been sitting and left him to himself.