CHAPTER XV.
MR. WEDMORE'S SECOND FREAK.
Even if Max had not had such an ugly experience of the ways of Mrs. Higgs, even if this meeting with her in the barn had been his first, his sensations would hardly have been agreeable ones. There was something uncanny about the old woman, something which her quiet, shuffling movements and her apparent lack of interest in what went on around her only served to accentuate. Even now, while suffering the shock of a great surprise, Max could feel rather than see the effect which the unexpected meeting had upon her.
For she uttered no cry, no word; her eyes scarcely opened wider than before. Her jaw dropped a little, and then began to move rapidly up and down; that was all. And yet, as Max looked at her—at this helpless, infirm old creature with the palsied hands and the lackluster eyes—he shivered.
"You vile old hag!" thought he to himself. And then his thoughts flew to Carrie, and he asked himself what the attraction could be which bound her to this wicked old woman.
Mrs. Higgs, after staring at him in dead silence for what seemed a long time, asked, as composedly as if their meeting had been the most natural thing in the world:
"Where's your friend, young man?"
"W—what friend?" stammered Max.
"Oh, you don't know, I suppose!" retorted Mrs. Higgs, derisively. "No more than you know what you wanted to come spying about Plumtree Wharf for, eh?"
Max made no answer. There came a vixenish gleam into the old woman's faded eyes.