“Well,” said he crossly, “then I’m very glad he’s been caught.”

“Ah!” cried she, quickly, “you don’t know what it will lead to, though.  He knows something, and if your friend, Mr. Horne, won’t try to get him off, why, he’ll be sorry.”

Max looked worried and thoughtful at this threat.

“I won’t believe,” said he, stoutly, “that my friend had anything to do with—­with what happened at the place.  It’s monstrous!—­impossible!”

Carrie said nothing.

“Who would believe this pack of thieves against a man like Dudley Horne?”

Carrie laughed cynically.

“Then why is he afraid?”

This indeed was the question which made the mystery inexplicable.  What reason could Dudley have for wishing to hush up the matter unless he himself had brought about Edward Jacobs’s violent death This was the old, old difficulty in which any discussion of the subject or any meditation on it always landed him.

He got up from his chair and began to walk about the room.

“Why are you leaving Mrs. Higgs?” asked he at last, suddenly.

Max was not without hope that the answer might give him a clue to something more.

“I couldn’t bear it any longer.  She has been different lately.  She has left me alone for days together, and besides—­besides—­she has been changed, unkind, since Christmas.”

Now Max remembered that it was on Christmas Eve that he had met Mrs. Higgs in the barn at The Beeches; and he wondered whether that amiable lady had visited upon Carrie her displeasure on finding that he had escaped alive from the wharf by the docks.

“I believe,” said he, suddenly, “that it was your precious Mrs. Higgs that murdered the man.  I’m quite sure she’s capable of it, or of any other villainy.”

Carrie leaned forward and looked at him earnestly.

“But what should he want to shelter Mrs. Higgs for, if she had done it?”

And to this Max could find no answer.

“And why, if he had nothing to do with the murder, should he be so much afraid of Mrs. Higgs that he steals away by himself to see her when she sends him a message?”

Max sprang up.

“Steals away!  By himself!” faltered he.

“Why, yes.  Did you really think he would come back?  Didn’t you know that the ten minutes he spoke of were only a blind, so that he could shake you off, and not make Mrs. Higgs angry by taking another man with him?  Surely, surely, you guessed that!  Surely, you knew that if the ten minutes had not been an excuse, he would have been back here long ago.”

Max felt the blood surging to his head.  The girl was right, of course.  He leaned against the bookcase, breathing heavily.

“You knew!  You guessed!  Why didn’t you—­why didn’t you tell me?”

Carrie stood up, as much excited as he was.  Her blue eyes flashed, her lips trembled as she spoke.