"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."
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 p.r.o.nounced 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 pa.s.sed 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?"
"n.o.body of any consequence," answered Mrs. Higgs, as if the subject was not to her taste. "A girl who lives here. We call her Carrie."
"And her other name?"
His tone betrayed his suspicions. Mrs. Higgs shrugged her shoulders.
"What does that matter to you? She is your half-sister, but I don"t suppose you wish to claim relationship?"
"Does she know--anything?"
"Something, perhaps. Not too much, I think. But it doesn"t matter. She is a weak, namby-pamby creature, and I"m sick of the sight of her white face. So I"ve got rid of her."
"How?"
"I"ve given her notice to quit. I don"t expect her back again."
"And aren"t you afraid that she may give information?"
"Ah! Your solicitude is for yourself, eh? No, she"ll hold her tongue for her own sake." And Mrs. Higgs"s features relaxed into a menacing grin.
"She"s seen enough of me to know she must be careful!"
Dudley moved restlessly.
"Isn"t it rough on the girl to bring her up like this? In this hole, among these human vermin? She seems to have some decent instincts."
Mrs. Higgs frowned.
"She was brought up as well as she had any right to expect," said she, shortly; "educated fairly well into the bargain. She has not had much to complain of."
Dudley made no answer to this for some minutes, and during this time Mrs. Higgs kept him steadily under observation, not a movement of his hands, a change of his expression, escaping her. At last he looked at her, and seemed to be struck by something in her face. He put his fingers upon the handle of the door as he turned to go.
"Well," said he--his voice sounded hollow, cold--"I have said what I came to say. I need not stay here any longer. I don"t wish to meet any of your friends."
Mrs. Higgs got slowly to her feet.
"My friends!" cried she, angrily. "My friends! They"ve done you no harm, at any rate; while your friends come spying round the place, poking their noses into business which is none of theirs."
Dudley"s hand dropped to his side.
"Do you mean Max Wedmore?" said he, earnestly. "Why, he is the son of the man who has been a father to me, who brought me up, who saved me from becoming the outcast that poor girl is--"
Mrs. Higgs interrupted him fiercely.
"That"ll do. I"m sick of the very name of Wedmore. They"ve had their own interests to serve, whatever they"ve done, depend upon it. And if he comes fooling round here again, I"ll treat him as you--"
Dudley broke in sharply, stopping her as her voice was growing loud and her gestures threatening. After a short pause, during which she watched him as keenly as ever, he asked, in a hoa.r.s.e whisper:
"What did you do with--_him_? Did anybody help you--any of your friends here? Or did you--"
Mrs. Higgs cut him short with an ugly laugh. At the mention of the dead man her face had changed, and a strange gleam of mingled cunning and ferocity came into her small, light eyes.
"Come and see--come and see," mumbled she, as she took up the candlestick from the table and shuffled across the room to the door which opened into the disused shop.
Dudley hesitated a moment; indeed, he glanced at the door by which he stood as if he felt inclined to make his escape without further delay.
But Mrs. Higgs, slow as she seemed, turned quickly enough to divine his purpose.
"No," said she, sharply, "not that way. This!"