Carrie said nothing.
"Who would believe this pack of thieves against a man like Dudley Horne?"
Carrie laughed cynically.
"Then why is he afraid?"
This indeed was the question which made the mystery inexplicable. What reason could Dudley have for wishing to hush up the matter unless he himself had brought about Edward Jacobs's violent death This was the old, old difficulty in which any discussion of the subject or any meditation on it always landed him.
He got up from his chair and began to walk about the room.
"Why are you leaving Mrs. Higgs?" asked he at last, suddenly.
Max was not without hope that the answer might give him a clue to something more.
"I couldn't bear it any longer. She has been different lately. She has left me alone for days together, and besides—besides—she has been changed, unkind, since Christmas."
Now Max remembered that it was on Christmas Eve that he had met Mrs. Higgs in the barn at The Beeches; and he wondered whether that amiable lady had visited upon Carrie her displeasure on finding that he had escaped alive from the wharf by the docks.