“What do I care—­for him?” she said under her breath.  “A man must take the risk of the things he does, mustn’t he?  But you—­you had done nothing; and—­and you have been kind to me.  I didn’t want you to go.  I couldn’t let you go.  So I tried to keep you.  I didn’t want you to remember.  And it was easy enough.”

Max felt a pang of keen self-reproach.  Yes, it had been easy enough for a girl with a pretty face to make him forget his friend.  He turned quickly toward the door.  But Carrie moved even more rapidly, and by the time he reached it she was there before him.

“It’s too late now,” she said in that deep voice of hers, which, when she was herself moved, was capable of imparting her own emotion to her hearers.  “He’s been gone an hour.  He’ll be there by this time.  What good could you do him by going?  There’s an understanding between her and him.  He’ll be all right.  Now you would not.”

Max stared at the girl in perplexity.  She spoke with confidence, with knowledge.  A great dread on his friend’s account began to creep over him.  Why should Dudley be safe where he himself was not, unless he were in league with the old hag?  Or, again, was it possible that Carrie—­pretty, sweet-faced Carrie—­was acting in concert with the gang, detaining him so that Dudley might be an easier prey to her accomplices?

As this suspicion crossed his mind, he, knowing his own weakness, resolved to act without the hesitation which would be fatal to his purpose.

Seizing her by the arm, he drew her almost roughly out of the way, and, opening the door, went out into the ante-room.

But before he could open the outer door, Carrie had overtaken him and seized him by the arm in her turn.

“No, no,” said she, passionately.  “I will not let you go.  You don’t know what you are rushing into; you don’t know what I do.”

“What do you mean?”

“That if you were to go into that house again, you wouldn’t leave it alive!”

“All the more reason,” said Max, struggling to free himself from the tenacious grasp of her fingers, which were a good deal stronger than he had supposed, “why I should not let him go into such a place alone.”

“Well, if you go, you will take me,” said Carrie, almost fiercely.

“Come along, then.”

He had his hand on the door, when he noticed that she had left her cape in the room.

“Fetch your cloak,” said he, shortly.

She hesitated.

“Give me your honor that you won’t go without me.”

“All right.  I’ll wait for you.”

She disappeared into the sitting-room, leaving the door open, however.  While she was gone, Max, still with his fingers on the handle of the door, heard the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs.  It was not Dudley’s tread, and, the sound being a common one enough, Max did not pay particular attention to it, and he was surprised when Carrie suddenly thrust forth her head through the sitting-room doorway, with a look of excitement and terror on her face.