“To show me a little gratitude at last, perhaps,” suggested Mrs. Higgs, sharply.  “To do your duty—­yes, it’s no more than your duty, you know, to do what I tell you—­and to help yourself in helping me.  That’s true, isn’t it?”

Dudley stared at her in silence for a few moments before he answered: 

“Duty is an odd word to use—­a very odd word.  But we won’t waste time discussing that.  You sent a message to me by a girl this evening?”

Mrs. Higgs nodded.

“You want me to defend one of the rascals who make this place their hole, their den?”

Again Mrs. Higgs signified assent.

“Well, I shall do nothing of the kind.  I have done more than enough for you already.  I have offered you the means of taking yourself off and of living like a decent creature.  I have done everything you could expect, and more.  But I will not be mixed up with you and the gang you choose to make your friends; and I will not lift a finger to save your friend the pickpocket from the punishment he deserves.”

Dudley spoke with decision, but he made no impression worth speaking of upon his hearer.  She continued to look at him with the same expression of dull malignity; and when she spoke, it was without vehemence.

“Well,” she began, leaning forward a little more and keeping her eyes fixed upon him, “perhaps you won’t have the chance of defending anybody long.  There’s been a woman about here lately, making inquiries and hunting about, and one of these fine days she may light upon something that’ll put her upon your track.”

“What do you mean?  Whom do you mean?”

“Why, Edward Jacobs’s widow, of course.  She had an idea where to look, you see.”

Dudley could not hide the fact that he was much disturbed by this intelligence.

“Poor woman!  Poor woman!  Who can blame her?” said he at last, more to himself than to Mrs. Higgs, “I’ve done what I could for her, sent her money every week since—­”

To his amazement, Mrs. Higgs suddenly interrupted him, bringing her fist down upon the table with a sounding thump.

“You fool!” screamed she.  “You—­fool!  You’ve given yourself away!  You deserve all you’ll certainly get!  Do you suppose a Jewess wouldn’t have wits enough to trace you by that?  By the fact that you sent her money?”

“But I sent it anonymously,” said Dudley.

“That doesn’t matter.  Money?  Postal-orders, I suppose?”

“Yes.”

“Well, they can be traced.  Oh, you fool, you wooden-headed fool!”

There was a pause.  Mrs. Higgs appeared to have exhausted herself in vituperation, while Dudley considered this new aspect of the affair in silence.

“Well,” said he at last, “if she does trace me, who will be the sufferer, do you suppose—­you or I?”

“Why, you, you, you, of course!” retorted the old woman with heat.  “You will be hanged, while I can bury myself like a mole in the ground and be forgotten, lost sight of altogether.”