“You vile old hag!” thought he to himself.  And then his thoughts flew to Carrie, and he asked himself what the attraction could be which bound her to this wicked old woman.

Mrs. Higgs, after staring at him in dead silence for what seemed a long time, asked, as composedly as if their meeting had been the most natural thing in the world: 

“Where’s your friend, young man?”

“W—­what friend?” stammered Max.

“Oh, you don’t know, I suppose!” retorted Mrs. Higgs, derisively.  “No more than you know what you wanted to come spying about Plumtree Wharf for, eh?”

Max made no answer.  There came a vixenish gleam into the old woman’s faded eyes.

“What did you come for, eh?” pursued she, sharply.  “Who sent you?  Not he, I know!  When he’s got anything to do at the wharf he comes himself.”

And Mrs. Higgs gave an ugly, mirthless chuckle.

As Max stared at the withered, lined face, which was growing each moment more repulsive in his eyes, a feeling of horror and of intense pity for Dudley seized him.  To be pursued, as his friend evidently was pursued, by this vicious old hag, was a fate hideous enough to expiate every crime in the Decalogue.

A little rapid reflection made him decide that a bold course of defiance was the best to be taken.  Whatever Dudley might have done, and whatever terrors Mrs. Higgs might hold over his head, it was very certain, after all, that the evidence of such a creature, living in such an underground fashion, could never be a serious danger to a man in his position.  Dudley himself seemed rather to have lost sight of this fact, certainly; but it could not be less than a fact for all that.

“Mr. Horne is not likely to trouble you or the rest of the thieves at the wharf again,” said Max, with decision.  “He’s gone abroad for a holiday.  And if you don’t take yourself off at once, or if you turn up here again, or if you attempt to annoy us or Mr. Horne, in any way whatever, you’ll find the police at your heels before you know where you are.”

Then into her dull eyes there came a look of malignity which made Max doubt whether he had done well to be so bold.

“Thieves, eh?  Tell your friend we’re thieves, and see what he says to that!  Police, eh?  Tell your friend that, tell your friend that, and see whether he’ll thank you for your interference!”

“Mr. Horne is away, as I told you.”

“Away, is he?  But he won’t be away long.  Oh, no; he’ll come back—­he’ll come back.  Or if he doesn’t,” added Mrs. Higgs, with complacency, “I’ll fetch him.”

“Well, you’ve got to leave this place at once,” said Max, with decision.  “We don’t allow strangers in the barn, and if you don’t go quietly at once, I must send somebody to turn you out.”

Mrs. Higgs kept her eyes fixed upon him with her usual blank stare while he said this in a very loud and decided tone.  When he had finished she suddenly blew out the light with so much unnecessary force that Max felt something like a gust of wind upon his face.