She said this with unctuous satisfaction, and Dudley gave her a glance of horror.

“And what particular pleasure will it give you, even supposing such an outcome possible, to see me hanged?”

The old woman’s indecent delight faded gradually from her face as she looked at him.  Then she rose slowly from her chair and came a step nearer to Dudley, who instinctively recoiled from the threatened touch.  She noticed this movement, and resented it fiercely.

“Why do you go back?  Why do you want to get away?  Always to get away?” she asked, angrily.  “That’s what makes me so mad!  Why do you try to get out of the business in the way you do?  Sneaking out of it, as if it had nothing to do with you?  Why don’t you throw in your lot with me and go away with me, as I wished you to, as you once were ready to do?”

Dudley looked searchingly into the wrinkled face.

“I was never ready to go,” said he.  “I did affect to be ready.  I was ready to go as far as Liverpool with you, to get you safely out of the country, out of danger to me and to yourself.  But I should never have gone farther than that.  I never meant to.  I would run any risk rather than that.”

Mr. Higgs never blinked.  Staring steadily up into his face, with a malignity more pronounced than ever, she asked, in a mocking tone: 

“Why?  Why?”

Dudley was silent.

Mrs. Higgs laughed, and shook her head with a look of unspeakable cunning.

“You needn’t answer,” said she, dryly, “for I know the reason.  You won’t leave England because of a girl.”

Dudley did not start, but the quiver which passed over his features betrayed him.

“Ha, ha!” laughed Mrs. Higgs.  “It’s not much use telling me a fib when I want to know anything.  You wouldn’t own up, so I went ferreting on my own account, and I found out what I wanted.  You’re in love with a girl named Wedmore—­Doreen Wedmore—­and it’s on her account that you won’t leave England, and throw in your lot with me, like a man!”

Dudley’s face had grown gray with fear.  When he spoke it was in a changed tone.  He had lost his confidence, his defiant robustness.  He almost seemed to be begging for mercy, as he answered: 

“I don’t deny it.  I don’t deny anything.  I did care for a girl; I do now.  But I have given her up.  I was bound to, with this ghastly business hanging to my heels.  I shall never see her again.”

Mrs. Higgs cut in with decision: 

“No, that you won’t.  I’ll answer for it!”

Dudley looked at her, but did not dare to speak.  There was something in the spiteful tones of her voice, when she mentioned Doreen, which filled him with vague dread.  It was in a subdued and conciliatory voice that he presently tried to turn the conversation to another subject.

“Who was the girl you sent this evening, the girl who brought your message?”

“Nobody of any consequence,” answered Mrs. Higgs, as if the subject was not to her taste.  “A girl who lives here.  We call her Carrie.”