THE BLUE-EYED NURSE.

It was at the door of Dudley's sick-room that Carrie informed Max that she had learned a secret from the lips of the sick man, and Max, by a natural impulse of curiosity, nay, more, a deep interest, pushed the door gently open.

Dudley's voice could be heard muttering below his breath words which Max could not catch.

But Carrie pulled the young man sharply back by the arm into the corridor, and shut the door behind her. Her face was full of determination.

"No," said she, "not even you."

Max drew himself up, offended.

"I should think you might trust me," he said, stiffly. "The doctor will have to hear when he comes. And the secret, whatever it is, will be safer with me than with old Haselden."

Carrie smiled a little, and shook her head.

"The doctor," said she, "wouldn't be able to make head or tail of what he says. Now, you would."

"And if I did, what of that? Don't I know everything, or almost everything, already? Didn't I bring him down here, to my father's house, after I knew that there was a warrant out against him? What better proof do you want that the secret would be safe with me?"

But Carrie would not give way. Without entering into an argument, she stood before him with a set look of obstinacy in her mouth and eyes, slowly shaking her head once or twice as he went on with his persuasions.

"Do you think I should make a wrong use of the secret?" asked Max, impatiently.

"Oh, no."

"Do you think it would turn me against him?"

But at this question she hesitated.

"I don't know," said she, at last.

"It is something that has given you pain?" Max went on, noting the traces of tears on her face and the misery in her eyes.

"Yes, oh, yes."

The answer was given in a very low voice, with such a heart-felt sob that Max was touched to the quick. He came quite close to her, and, bending down, so that his mustache almost brushed the soft fair hair on her forehead, he whispered:

"I'm so sorry. Poor Carrie! I won't worry you, then; I won't ask any more questions, if only—if only you'll let me tell you how awfully sorry I am."

He ventured to put his hand upon her shoulder, as he bent down to look into her face.

And, as luck would have it, Mr. Wedmore at that very moment bounced out of one of the rooms which opened on the corridor, and caught sight of this pretty little picture before it broke up.

Of course, Max withdrew his hand and lifted up his head so swiftly that he flattered himself he had been too quick for his father, who walked along the corridor toward the drawing-room as if he had seen nothing.

But Max was mistaken. Mr. Wedmore, already greatly irritated by his son's repeated failures to settle down, found in this little incident a pretext for a fresh outburst of wrath.

Unluckily for poor Carrie, Mrs. Wedmore was in a state of irritation, in which she was even readier than usual to agree with her husband. The arrival of Dudley, with a terrible charge hanging over his head, in such circumstances as to stir up Doreen's feelings for him to the utmost, was bad enough. But for him to descend upon them in the company of a young woman of whom she had never heard, and in whose alleged relationship to Dudley she entirely disbelieved, had reduced the poor lady to a state which Queenie succinctly described as "one of mamma's worst."

As soon as Mr. Wedmore entered the drawing-room, where his wife and daughters were discussing some invitations to dinner which were to have been sent out, but about which there was now a doubt, he abruptly ordered the two girls to leave the room. They obeyed very quietly, but Doreen threw at her mother one imploring glance, and gently pulling her father's hair, told him that he was not to be a hard, heartless man.

When the door was shut, however, Mr. Wedmore addressed his wife in no very gentle tones.

"Ellen," said he, curtly, "you must get rid of that baggage they call the nurse. She's no more a nurse than you are!"

"And she's no more his sister than I am, either!" chimed in Mrs. Wedmore, who had risen from her chair in great excitement.

Mr. Wedmore stared at his wife.

"Sister!" cried he, in a voice of thunder. "Whose sister? Dudley Horne never had a sister!"

"I know that, but that's the story they have made up for us; and the girls—our girls—are ready to believe it, and I don't want them to know it isn't true."

"Well, whatever she is, and whoever she is, I want her to be outside the house before lunch time," said Mr. Wedmore. "I've just caught Max with his arm around her, and I haven't the slightest doubt that it was he who made up the story. Any tale's good enough for the old people! Look at her face—look at her dress! She is some hussy who ought never to have been allowed inside the house!"

"It was Doreen who brought her in. And, to do her justice, George, I believe the girl didn't want to come," said Mrs. Wedmore. "And it's about Doreen I wanted to talk to you, George. This coming of Dudley has upset all the good we did by never mentioning him to her. To-day she's as much excited, as anxious and as miserable as if they were still engaged. And—and—oh! if the police come here to the house and take him awa-a-ay,"—and here the poor lady became almost too hysterical to articulate—"it will break the child's heart, George; it will indeed. And, oh! do you think it possible he really did—really did—"

"Did what?"

"Oh, you know! It's to dreadful to say. Why do you make me say it? They say something about his having gone out of his mind, and—and—killed somebody. It isn't true, George, is it?"

"I don't know, I'm sure. Who told you?"

"Max first, and then I learned the rest from the guesses of the girls. Oh, it is dreadful—shocking! And to think of his having been planted down upon us like this, just when I was beginning to hope that Doreen was getting kinder to Mr. Lindsay."

"It's all the doing of that idiot Max!" said Mr. Wedmore, angrily. "I'll send him out to the Cape, and make an end of it. He shall go next month."

"Oh, I didn't want that," pleaded Mrs. Wedmore, with a sudden change to tenderness and self-reproach. "Don't do anything in a hurry, George, anything you will be sorry for afterward."

"Sorry for! The only thing I'm sorry for is that I didn't send him before, and saved all this."

"And as for the girl, no doubt it's her fault, and Dudley's, a great deal more than Max's," went on the mother of Max, with the usual feminine excuse for the darling scapegrace. "When she's gone he will forget all about her, as he always does."

This speech was an unlucky one.

"Yes, that's just what I complain of, that he always forgets," said he, turning sharply upon his wife. "If he would stick to anything or to anybody for so much as a week, or a day, or an hour, I shouldn't mind so much. But he isn't man enough for that. As soon as this girl's out of the house, he'll be looking about for another one."

"I'm sure it wasn't his fault that she came here at all," persisted Mrs. Wedmore, who never opposed her husband except in the interest of her son. "And I'm sure you can't blame him for doing what he could for his friend, even if he does put us to a little inconvenience. After all, Dudley's been like a son to you for a great many years—"

"That's just what I complain of—that he's so like a son," interrupted her husband. "That is to say, he has brought upon us no end of worry and bother, and a bill for five guineas for this pleasant little drive down from London."

"Well, how could we refuse to take him in?"

"How did he get into the mess?"

"What mess?"

"That's what I want to know, too—what mess? I am told he fell into the water, striking his head against the side of a bridge, or of a church, or it doesn't matter what, as he fell. They haven't thought it worth while to make up a good story. But whether he was drunk, or whether he was escaping from the police, or what he was doing, nobody seems to know. If I'd been consulted, if I hadn't been treated as a cipher in the matter, he should have driven straight back to London again with the girl, and with Max himself."

Mrs. Wedmore thought it better to say nothing to this, but to let her husband simmer down. These ferocious utterances came from the lips only, as she very well knew, and might safely be disregarded.

Fortunately his attention was diverted at this point by the arrival of the doctor, who had been out on his rounds when they first sent for him.

Rather relieved to have a fresh person to pour out his complaints to, Mr. Wedmore hastened to give his old friend a somewhat confused account of the patient's arrival and condition, in which "cheap, ready-made clothes," "a bill for five guineas," "a baggage of a girl" and "the police" were the prominent items.

But as for any details concerning the patient's state of health and the reasons for his needing medical care, Doctor Haselden could learn nothing at all until he had prevailed upon Mr. Wedmore to let him see Dudley instead of listening to abuse of him.

Doctor Haselden was a long time in the sick-room, and when he came out he looked grave. Mr. Wedmore, who met him outside the door, was annoyed.

"It's nothing, I suppose, that a few days' quiet won't set right?" he asked quickly.

"I don't know, I'm sure," answered the doctor. "It's more serious than I thought by what you said—a great deal more serious. I don't know, I'm sure, whether we shall get him round at all."

A little cry startled both men and made them look round. In a recess of the corridor above they could distinguish the figure of a woman, and Mr. Wedmore's heart smote him, for it was Doreen.

"Go away, child! Go away!" said he, half petulantly, but yet with some remorse in his tone. "The girl's crazy about him," he added, with irritation, when his daughter had silently obeyed.

"Poor child! Poor child!" said Doctor Haselden, sympathetically. "She's the real old-fashioned sort, with a warm heart under all her little airs. I hope he'll get round, if only for her sake. But—"

"She couldn't marry him in any case," said Mr. Wedmore, shortly. "I thought I told you that affair was broken off—definitely broken off—weeks ago. And now—"

He stopped and intimated by a gesture of the hand that the break was more definite than ever.

The doctor was curious, but he tried not to show it.

"I should wire up to town for another nurse, I think," said he. "This little girl can't do it all."

Mr. Wedmore pricked up his ears.

"Then I must wire for two—for two nurses," said he, decidedly. "We're going to send this girl off. She's not a nurse at all."

"Ah, but she does very well," objected the doctor, promptly, "and you will be doing very unwisely if you send her away. It seems she understands all the circumstances of the case, and that counts for something in treating a patient who has evidently something on his mind. She seems to be able to soothe him, and in a case of concussion—"

"But she's trying to get hold of my fool of a son Max!" protested Mr. Wedmore.

"But it isn't a question of your son Max, but of young Horne," said Doctor Haselden, with decision. "As for Max, he can take care of himself; and, at any rate, he's got all his family about to take care of him. You keep the girl. She's got a head on her shoulders. Most uncommon thing, that—in a girl with such eyes!"

And the doctor, with a humorous nod to his angry friend, went downstairs.

After this warning of the real danger in which Dudley lay, it was, of course, impossible for Mr. Wedmore to send poor Carrie away, at any rate until the arrival of some one who could take her place. And as there was clearly some sense in the doctor's suggestion that her knowledge of the case was valuable, Mr. Wedmore ended by sending up for one trained nurse to relieve her, instead of for two, as he had proposed.

And, after all, there seemed to be less danger in the direction of Max than he had supposed; for Carrie never once left the sick-room until the professional nurse arrived at ten o'clock that night. And as Mrs. Wedmore was then in waiting to mount guard over Carrie, and to carry her off to her supper and then to her bedroom, the first day's danger to the susceptible son and heir seemed to have been got through rather well.

On the following morning, however, the well-watched Carrie escaped from the supervision of her jailers, and boldly made a direct attack upon Max under the family's nose.

Carrie was looking out of one of the back windows of the house to get a breath of fresh air, before taking her turn of duty in the sick-room, when she saw Max talking to one of the grooms outside the stables. He saw her, and his face flushed. Mrs. Wedmore, who was standing on guard a few paces from Carrie, noted the fact with maternal anxiety. She rather liked the girl, whose modest manners were as attractive as her pretty face; but with the fear of "entanglements" before her eyes, she tried to check her own inclination. Carrie turned to her abruptly.

"The nurse won't mind waiting a few minutes for me," said she, quickly. "I must speak a few words to Mr. Max."

And before Mrs. Wedmore could get breath after this audacious statement, Carrie was down the stairs and half away across the yard, where Max hastened to meet her.

"I have something to say to you," she began at once with a grave face. "Do you know that—they've come?"

"Who? Who have come?"

"The police."

Max started.

"Nonsense! What makes you think so? I've seen no one."

"I have, though. I've been expecting them, for one thing, and it's made me sharp, I suppose. But I've seen in the park, among the trees, this morning before anybody was up almost, a man walking about, taking his bearings and looking about him."

"One of the gardeners," said Max. "There are several."

"Oh, no, it wasn't a gardener. Can't you trust my London eyes? And listen: Presently another one came up, and they talked together. Then one went one way and the other another, not like gardeners or workingmen, but like men on the lookout."

"What should they be on the lookout for?" asked Max. "If they want Dudley, why don't they come up to the house? I don't doubt that by this time they know where he is."

Carrie said nothing; but there was in her eyes, as she glanced searchingly round her, a peculiar look of wistful dread which puzzled Max and made him wonder what fear it was that was in her mind.

MAX MAKES A STAND AND A DISCOVERY.

There was a pause, and then Carrie, without answering him, turned to go back into the house. But Max followed and caught her by the arm.

"Carrie," said he, "they're making a slave of you, without a word of thanks. You look worn out."

"No, I'm not," said she, briskly. "I've only taken my turns; I should look all right if it hadn't been for that long, tiring journey yesterday. I haven't quite got over that yet."

She was trying to free her hand, which Max was holding in his.

"You'll never be strong enough for a hospital nurse, Carrie!"

"Oh, yes, but I shall!" retorted she. And as she spoke, the pink color, the absence of which made her usually look so delicate, came into her cheeks. "And you must remember that I shall be better fed, better clothed then. I am not really weak at all."

"I repeat—you will never be strong enough for a nurse. Better take my advice and marry me, Carrie!"

But at that, a sudden impulse of hot anger gave the girl the necessary strength to snatch her hand away from him. She faced him fiercely.

"What! To be looked at always as your father, your mother, look at me now? As if I were a thief who must be watched, lest she should steal something? They needn't be afraid either, if only they knew! And before I go I'll tell them. Yes, I'll tell them what a mistake they make in thinking I want to take their son, their precious son, away from them! That for their son!"

And Carrie, very ungratefully, to be sure, held her right hand close to the face of Max and snapped her fingers scornfully. She had seen Mrs. Wedmore's eyes over the half blind of one of the windows, and the minx thought this little scene would be a wholesome lesson.

But Max, following the direction of Carrie's eyes, had also seen the watching face, and a manful spirit of defiance on the one hand, of passion on the other, moved him to show both Carrie and his mother how things were going with him.

Seizing the girl round the waist when her little spurt of defiance was scarcely over, he held her head with his disengaged hand and pressed upon her eyes, her cheeks and her lips a dozen hot kisses.

"There!" said he, when at last he let her go, and she, staggering, blushing, ran toward the shelter of the house. "That's what you get for being ungrateful, you little cat. And it's nothing to what you'll get from my mother, who's sure to say it's all your fault. And so—" roared he up the stairs after her, as she reached the top, "so it is, of course!"

But Carrie found a refuge inside the sick-room, where Dudley, who had passed a better night than they had even hoped, was now lying with closed eyes, quiet and apparently calm.

It was upon Max himself, for a wonder, that the vials of the family wrath were poured. Mrs. Wedmore, happening to meet her husband while the last grievance against the girl was fresh, and before she had had the time to meditate on the result of a premature disclosure, made known to him the outrage of which she had been a witness, taking care to dwell upon the audacity of the girl in pursuing and provoking Max.

Mr. Wedmore listened in silence, and then said, curtly:

"Where is he now? Send him to me."

Max, bent upon making himself as conspicuous and, therefore, as offensive as possible, was whistling in the hall at the moment. And there was a defiant note in his very whistling which worked his father up to boiling point. Mr. Wedmore sprang off his chair and dashed open the door.

"Max, you fool, come here!" was his unpromising summons.

Max came at once, rather red in the face and bright of eyes. Mrs. Wedmore, standing, frightened and anxious, in the background, thought she had never seen her darling boy look so handsome, so manly. He came in very quietly, without swaggering, without defiance, as if he had not noticed the offensive epithet.

His father, who was by this time on the post of vantage, the hearth-rug, with his hands behind him and his back to the fire, pointed imperiously to a chair.

"Sit down, sir."

Max sat down very deliberately on a chair other than the one his father had chosen for him, and looked down on the floor.

"So you are at your old tricks, your old habits!" began Mr. Wedmore.

Max looked up. Then he sat up.

"What old tricks and habits do you mean, sir?"

"Running after every girl you see, and in defiance of all decency, under your mother's very nose."

Mrs. Wedmore would have interposed here, but her husband waved his hand imperially, and she remained silent. Max leaned back in his chair and met his father's eyes steadily.

"You have made a mistake, sir, and my mother has made a mistake, too. It is quite true she may have seen me kissing Miss—Miss—Carrie, in fact. But I hope to have the right to kiss her. I want to marry her."

"To marry this—this—"

"This beautiful young girl, whom nobody has a word to say against," interrupted Max, in a louder voice. "Come, sir, you can't say I'm at my old tricks now. I've never wanted to marry any girl before."

For the moment Mr. Wedmore was stupefied. This was worse, far worse than he had expected. Mrs. Wedmore, also, was rather shocked. But the sensation, was tempered, in her case, with admiration of her boy's spirit in daring to make this avowal.

"Mind, I only say I want to marry her. Because, so far, she has refused to have anything to say to me."

"Not refused to marry you!" broke in Mrs. Wedmore, unable to remain quiet under such provocation as this.

"Yes, refused to marry me, mother. I have asked her—begged her."

"Oh, it's only artfulness, to make you more persistent," cried Mrs. Wedmore, indignantly.

"Or perhaps," suggested Mr. Wedmore, in his driest tones, "the girl is shrewd enough to know that I should cut off a son who was guilty of such a piece of idiocy and leave him to his own resources."

Max said nothing for a moment; then he remarked, quietly:

"You have been threatening to do that already, sir, before there was any question of my marrying."

Mrs. Wedmore was frightened by the tone Max was using. He was so much quieter than usual, so much more decided in his tone, that she began to think there was less chance than usual of his coming to an agreement with his father.

"You know, Max," she said, coming over to his chair and putting an affectionate hand on his head, "that your father has only spoken to you as he has done because he wanted to rouse up your spirit and make you ashamed of being lazy."

Max rose from his chair and turned to her with flashing eyes.

"And now, when there is a chance of my rousing myself at last, when I am ready and anxious to prove it, and to set to work, and to settle down, he is angrier with me than ever. Mother, you know I'm right, and you know it isn't fair."

Mrs. Wedmore looked with something like terror into her son's handsome, excited face.

"But, my dear boy, don't you see that this would be ruin, to tie yourself to a girl like that? Why, she told me herself that she didn't belong to anywhere or anybody."

"And is that any reason why she should never belong to anywhere or to anybody? If there was anything wrong about the girl herself, I would listen to you—"

"Listen to us! You'll have to listen!" interrupted his father.

Max glanced at him, and went on:

"But there is not."

"And how do you know that? How long have you known her?"

Max was taken aback. It had not occurred to him to think how short his acquaintance with Carrie had been.

"Long enough to find out all about her," he answered, soberly; "and to make up my mind that I'll have her for my wife."

"Then that settles it," broke in Mr. Wedmore, whose ill-humor had not been decreased by the fact that Max evidently considered it more important to conciliate his mother than to try to convince him. "You will go to the Cape next month; and if you choose to take this baggage with you, you can do so. It won't much matter to us what sort of a wife you introduce to your neighbors out there."

But Max strode across the room and stood face to face with his father, eye to eye.

"No, sir," he said, in a dogged tone of voice, thrusting his hands deep into his pockets and looking at him steadily. "I shall not go to the Cape. You have a right to turn me out of your house if you please. In fact, it's quite time I went, I know. It's time I did settle down. It's time I did try to do something for myself. And I'm going to. I'm going to try to earn my own living and to make enough to keep a wife—the wife I want. And I shall do it somehow. But I'm not going to be packed off to Africa, as if my marrying this girl were a thing to be ashamed of. I'm going to stay in England. I sha'n't come near you. You needn't be afraid of that. I shall be too proud of my wife to bring her among people who would look down upon her. And perhaps you'd better not inquire where I live or what I'm doing, for we sha'n't be able to live in a fashionable neighborhood, nor to be too particular about what we turn our hands to."

While Max made this speech very slowly, very deliberately, his father listened to him with ever-increasing anger and disgust, and his mother, not daring to come too close while he was right under the paternal eye, hung over the table in the background, with yearning, tremulous love in her eyes, and with her lips parted, ready to utter the tender words of a pleading peacemaker.

But the tone Mr. Wedmore chose to take was that of utter contempt, complete irresponsibility. When his son had finished speaking he waited as if to hear whether there was any more to come, and then abruptly turned his back upon him and began to poke the fire.

"Very well," said he, with an affectation of extreme calmness. "Since you have made up your mind, the sooner you begin to carry out your plans the better. I'm very glad to see that you have a mind to make up."

"Thank you, sir," said Max.

And he was turning to leave the room, when his mother sprang forward and stopped him.

"No, no! Don't go like that! My boy! George! Don't say good-bye yet. Take a little time. Let him try a little trouble of his own for a change. He has made up his mind, he says. I'm sure he's old enough. Leave him alone."

Max put his arm round his mother, gave her a warm kiss, disengaged himself, and left the room.

The poor woman was almost hysterical.

"He means it, George! He means it this time!" she moaned.

And her husband, though he laughed at her, and though he said to himself that he did not care, was inclined to agree with her.

Max went straight up to his own room, and began to do his packing with much outward cheerfulness. Indeed he felt no depression over the dashing step he was taking, although he felt sore over the parting with home and his mother and sisters.

He was debating within himself whether he should try to see Carrie before he went, or whether he should only leave a note to be given to her after he was gone, when he heard the voice of his sister Doreen calling him. He threw open the door and shouted back.

She was in the hall.

"Max," cried she, in a hissing whisper, "I want to speak to you. Make haste!"

He ran downstairs and found her standing with two of the maids, both of whom looked rather frightened.

"Max," said Doreen, "there's an old woman hanging about the place—" Max started. He guessed what was coming. "The same old woman that came at Christmas time. She jumped up in the well-house at Anne, and sent her into hysterics. And now they've lost sight of her, just as they did last time, and we want you to help to ferret her out and send her away."

"All right," said Max. "We'll pack her off."

He was at the bottom of the staircase by this time, and was starting on his way to the yard, when a little scream from one of the two maids, as she glanced up the stairs, made him look around. Carrie had come down so lightly and so swiftly that she was upon the group before they had heard a sound. She beckoned to Max, who came back at once.

Carrie was shaking like a leaf; her eyes were wide with alarm, with terror. Max went up a few stairs, to be out of hearing of the others, as she seemed to wish. Then she whispered:

"You know who it is. I saw her. Leave her alone. I implore you to leave her alone! She'll do no harm. Let her rest. Let the poor creature rest. If—if the police—"

At that moment there was a shout from the yard outside. Carrie sprang like a hare up the stairs to the window, and looked out with straining eyes.

The afternoon was one of those dull misty winter days, with a leaden sky and an east wind.

"I'll see that she isn't hurt!" called out Max, as he bounded down the stairs and ran into the yard behind the house.

Here he found a motley group—the stablemen, the laundry-maids and the gardeners—all hunting in the many corners and crannies of the outbuildings for the old woman who had alarmed Anne.

Max spoke sharply to the men.

"Here, what are you about?" said he. "Hunting a poor old woman as if she were a wild animal? Go back to your work. She'll never dare to show her face while you are all about!"

"She's left the well-house, sir, and, we think, she's got into the big barn," explained one of the lads, with the feeling that Mr. Max himself would want to join in the chase when he knew that the game was to hand.

"Well, leave her there," answered Max, promptly. "She'll come out when you've all gone, and I'll send her about her business."

Max saw, as he spoke, that there was a man standing at a little distance just outside the stable-gate, whom he did not recognize. Before he could ask who he was, however, the man had disappeared from view. He remembered what Carrie had said about the presence of a policeman, and he thought the time was come to take the bull by the horns.

So he walked rapidly in the direction of the gate, and addressed the man whom he found there.

"Are you a policeman?" he asked, abruptly.

"Yes, sir," answered the man, touching his hat.

"What is your business here?"

"I'm on the lookout for some one I have a warrant for. Charge of murder, sir."

"Man or woman?"

"Man, sir."

"Will you tell me his name?"

"Horne, sir."

Max thought a moment.

"Why are you pottering about here, instead of going straight up to the house?"

"Well, sir, I'm obeying orders."

"Come with me," said Max suddenly. "There's an old hag hiding in the barn now, who knows more about this business than Mr. Horne."

Behind the young gentleman's back the detective smiled, but he professed to be ready to follow him.

"There's only one way out of this barn," explained Max, as he approached the door, beside which a groom was standing. "By this door, which is never locked. There is a window, but it's too high up for anybody to get out by."

Telling the groom to guard the door, Max went into the barn, followed by the detective. There was still light enough for them to find their way about among the lumber.

"Where's the window, sir?" asked the detective.

Max pointed to a speck of light high in the south wall of the barn.

"She couldn't get out there," said he, "even if she could climb up to it. Unless she could swarm a rope."

And he touched one of the ropes which dangled from a huge beam.

The detective, however, walked rapidly past him, and stopped short, pointing to something which was lying on the floor under the window.

It was the body of a man, lying in a heap.

THE MYSTERY EXPLAINED.

Max helped the detective raise the man from the ground. He was quite dead, and from the position in which they had found him, both men concluded that he had been in the act of climbing up to the high window, when the rope by which he was holding broke under his weight. It was evident that he had fallen upon an old millstone which was among the lumber on the floor beneath, and that the shock of the fall had broken his neck.

They had found out all this before Max could form any opinion as to the identity of the dead man. He was short of stature, and apparently between fifty and sixty years of age, slightly built, but muscular. The body was dressed in the clothes of a respectable mechanic.

There was very little light in the barn by this time, and Max directed the groom, who had been standing outside, and who had entered, attracted by Max's shout of discovery, to bring a lantern.

"I suppose we'd better send for a doctor," said Max, "though the man's as dead as a doornail. In the meantime, just give a look around and see whether the woman is anywhere about."

The detective appeared to follow the suggestion, for he at once proceeded to a further inspection of the building by the aid of one of the two lanterns which the groom had by this time brought. And presently he came back to Max with a bundle in his hand.

Max, by the light of the lantern which the groom was holding for him, was looking at the face of the dead man, whom he guessed to be one of Mrs. Higgs's accomplices, perhaps the mysterious person whose influence over the old woman, according to Carrie, was so bad.

While he was staring intently at the dead face, he heard a stifled cry, and looking up, saw that Carrie had stolen into the barn behind the groom, and had her eyes fixed upon the body.

Max sprang up.

"Do you know him? Is it the man who used to get into the place by night?" asked he, eagerly.

Carrie, without answering, looked from the dead man to the detective, and from him to the bundle he was carrying.

"Ah!" exclaimed she.

Max looked in his turn. The detective was displaying, one by one, a woman's skirt, bodice, bonnet, shawl and a cap with a "front" of woman's hair sewn inside it.

"I think you can guess, sir, what's become of the woman now?" said the officer, grimly.

Max started violently, shocked by a surprise which, both for the detective and for Carrie, had been discounted some time ago.

"Mrs. Higgs" was a man.

Even with this knowledge to help him, Max, as he stared again at the dead face, found it difficult to recognize in the still features those which in life had inspired him with feelings of repulsion.

Just a quiet, inoffensive, respectable-looking man not coarse or low in type; this would have been his comment upon the dead man, if he had known nothing about him. Max shuddered as he withdrew his gaze; and, as he did so, he met the eyes of Carrie.

He beckoned to her to come away with him, and she followed him as far as the door, toward which some members of the household, to whom the news had penetrated, were now hastening.

"Carrie!" cried he, as he looked searchingly in her face, "you knew this? How long have you known it?"

She could scarcely answer. She was shaking from head to foot, and was evidently suffering from a great shock.

"Yes, I knew it, but only since I came here. It was part of what Mr. Dudley Horne let out in his raving."

"Only part of it?" cried Max.

But Carrie would confess nothing more. And, as Mr. Wedmore came across the yard at this moment, followed by Dr. Haselden, Carrie ran back into the house as Max met his father.

"What's all this about a dead man found in the barn?" asked Mr. Wedmore, with all the arrogance of the country gentleman, who thinks that no one has a right to die on his premises without his permission.

Max held his father back for a moment until the doctor had passed on. In the excitement of this occurrence, Mr. Wedmore was glad to have an opportunity of appearing to forget that there was any quarrel between them. On second thoughts, he inclined to think that he had perhaps, on this occasion, been a little too hard on his son, and he was anxious for some loop-hole by which he could creep out of the consequences of his own sternness. This, however, could hardly have been guessed by his manner, which was at least as arrogant as ever.

"It's somebody who was mixed up in the death of Edward Jacobs, sir, I think," said Max, in a low voice. "A man who has been living down at the East End of London disguised as a woman, and who was, I believe, at the bottom of all the mischief."

"Man disguised as a woman?" cried Mr. Wedmore, incredulously. "What an improbable story! And what should he do down here in my barn?"

"I think he must have come down to see Dudley, sir. We believe that it was he who tried to drown Dudley, after he had succeeded in drowning Edward Jacobs."

Mr. Wedmore frowned in perplexity.

"Trying to drown Dudley! What on earth should he do that for? What had Dudley to do with him?"

"Well, sir, we don't quite know. But Dudley was acquainted with this man, undoubtedly, though we don't know whether he knew him to be a man, or only as Mrs. Higgs, which was the name the man went by."

"Let me see the man," said Mr. Wedmore.

And, pushing past his son, he entered the barn.

The doctor made way for him.

"He is quite dead. He must have been killed instantly," said Doctor Haselden, as his friend came up.

Mr. Wedmore took the lantern from the man who held it, and looked at the dead face. As he did so, his first expression of curiosity gave place to one of perplexity, followed by a stare of intense amazement and horror.

"What is it? Do you know him?" asked Doctor Haselden, while Max, who had followed his father in, watched with intense interest and surprise.

Mr. Wedmore did not seem to hear. He continued to look at the dead face for some moments with an appearance of utter absorption, and then, suddenly staggering back, he made for the open air without a word of explanation.

Max stared at the doctor, and then followed his father out. But Mr. Wedmore was already half way to the house, where he shut himself into the study, and locking the door, refused to be disturbed.

Max was more bewildered than ever by this new turn of affairs. With a dogged determination not to be kept any longer out of a secret of which everybody but himself seemed to know something, he went straight up to the sick-room in search of Carrie. His knock, however, was answered by the professional nurse, who opened the door and asked him what he wanted.

"Oh, it doesn't matter," said Max. "At least—I wanted to know how Mr. Horne is now."

"He won't be so well to-night, I expect," answered the nurse, tartly. "There's been a great noise and disturbance outside, and he's heard something of it, and it's made him restless and curious. He is asking questions about it all the time, and he won't be satisfied. He keeps asking for the other nurse, who is out taking her walk, as I tell him."

At this point Dudley's voice was heard from the bed. "Who's that at the door? Who is it?"

Max, after a moment's hesitation, during which the nurse assumed an air of washing her hands of the whole matter, answered:

"Me, old chap—Max. How are you?"

Dudley sprang up in bed. The nurse folded her arms and frowned.

"Come in, oh, come in, just one moment! I'll be quiet, nurse, quite quiet. But I must see him—I must see somebody."

Max threw an imploring glance at the nurse, who refused to look at him. Then he went in.

"Only a minute—I won't stay a minute."

The nurse shrugged her shoulders.

"It's against the doctor's orders. I wash my hands of the consequences," said she.

And, with her head held very high, she left the room.

Max stood irresolute. By the look of excitement on Dudley's face, he judged that anything must be better for him than the eager suspense from which he was evidently suffering. This news of the death of the odious inhabitant of the house by the wharf must surely bring relief to him. As soon as they were alone together, Dudley burst out eagerly:

"That noise! It's no use deceiving me; I know what it was. They were after him. Tell me—has he got away? Has my father got away?"

BACK TO LOVE AND LIFE.

Max fell into a chair. He stared at Dudley for a few moments before he could speak. Dudley's father! The man supposed to have died years and years ago in an asylum abroad, was the person who had passed as "Mrs. Higgs!" Even before he had had time to learn any of the details of the strange story, the outlines of it were at once apparent to the mind of Max.

Here was, then, the explanation of the mysterious bond between Dudley and Mrs. Higgs; here was the meaning of his visits to Limehouse.

Dudley repeated his question before Max had recovered from the shock of his surprise.

"Yes," said he at last, "he has got away."

But Dudley detected some reserve in his manner, or perhaps his own suspicions were aroused. He looked searchingly at Max, and asked abruptly:

"Is he dead?"

Max looked at him askance.

"Yes," he said at last.

Dudley lay back in his pillows.

"Thank God!"

And Max knew by the look of intense relief on his friend's face that he had done right in telling him the truth.

But, indeed, Max could not guess how intense the relief was from the burden of the secret which Dudley had had to bear for so long; and undoubtedly the discovery that it was a secret no longer, that the necessity for concealment was now over, helped his recovery materially.

Max told him, as briefly as possible, the details of the occurrence; but he neither asked nor invited any more questions.

It was not until some time afterward, when Dudley had left the sick-room, that the whole of the story became known to the family. But, in the meantime, the inquest on the body brought many facts to light.

Mrs. Edward Jacobs, the widow of the man who had been found drowned in the Thames off Limehouse some weeks before, had been, so it was discovered, the person to give information to the police against Dudley, as the suspected murderer of her husband. She had traced to him the weekly postal orders, which she looked upon as blood-money, and she had then hung about his chambers, and on one occasion followed him to Limehouse, without, however, penetrating farther than the entrance of the wharf.

Upon the information given by her a warrant was issued against Dudley; but in searching his chambers a number of letters were found, all addressed to Dudley, which threw a new and lurid light upon the affair. The letters were written by the father to the son, and contained the whole story of his return to England a few months before; of his anxiety to see his son; his morbid fear of being recognized and shut up as a lunatic, and his equally morbid hankering after information concerning Edward Jacobs, the man who had ruined him.

All these letters, which were directed in a feigned handwriting, seemed sane and sensible enough, although they showed signs of eccentricity of character.

The next batch were written after the disappearance of Edward Jacobs, and in them the signs of morbid eccentricity were more apparent. The writer owned to having "put Jacobs out of the way," upbraided Dudley for interfering on behalf of such a wretch, and accused him of ingratitude in refusing to leave England with his father, who had done mankind in general and him in particular a service in killing a monster. The writer went on to accuse Dudley of siding with his father's enemies, of wishing to have him shut up, and told him that he should never succeed.

Some of these letters were directed to The Beeches, and some to Dudley's chambers, showing an intimate knowledge of his whereabouts.

The latest letters were wilder, more bitter, showing how insanity which had broken out into violence before was increasing in intensity, and how the feelings of regard which he had seemed to entertain for his son had given place to strong resentment against him.

After the reading of these letters, it was plain that the crime of murder which Mrs. Jacobs had laid to Dudley's charge had been really the work of his father; and Mrs. Jacobs herself, on being made acquainted with these facts, agreed with this conclusion.

There remained only the question of Dudley's complicity in the crime to be considered, and that was a matter which could be left until the sick man's recovery.

It was on the first day of Dudley's appearance in the family circle that the subject was broached, clumsily enough, by Mr. Wedmore, who was dying to know a great deal more than anybody had been willing to tell him.

Dudley had come into the drawing-room, which had been well warmed for the occasion with a roaring fire, and it was here that they found him after luncheon, with the professional nurse beside him.

The girls greeted him rather shyly, especially Doreen, but Mrs. Wedmore was motherly and gentle. Mr. Wedmore attacked him at once.

"I can't understand, Dudley, why you kept it all so dark. Couldn't you see for yourself that it was better for your father to be under restraint, as well as safer for other people?"

Mrs. Wedmore tried to interpose and to change the conversation to another subject, but Dudley said:

"I would rather explain now, once and for all. I shall be going away to-morrow, and there are several things which I should like to make clear first." He paused, and Mrs. Wedmore, her daughters and the nurse took the opportunity to leave the room. "Now, Mr. Wedmore, tell me what you want to know."

"Well, you told us nothing about your father's being alive and back in England, for one thing."

"It was by his wish that I kept it a secret. He persisted that he was sane; he seemed to be sane. But he believed that if it were known that he was in England he would be shut up."

"But the passing himself off as an old woman, this living in a sort of underground way, didn't that look like madness?"

"I took it for eccentricity and nothing more, until—until he sent for me one day, and brought me suddenly into a room—a little dark, bare room—where there was a man lying on the ground asleep, as I thought. My father told me to bring him into the next room, and—when I stooped to touch him"—Dudley shuddered at the ghastly recollection—"my hands were covered with blood."

"Good gracious! He had murdered him?"

"Yes. And from that time he seemed a different man. I saw that he was mad. I tried to persuade him to give himself up, to let himself be put under restraint. I laid traps for him, trying to take him to an asylum. But he was too cunning for me, and all I got by it was to rouse in him a bitter feeling of hatred of myself."

"Why didn't you give information—to the police, if necessary?"

"How could I? My own father! I believed he would be hanged if he was caught. I believe so still. The last time I saw him he seemed sane, except for a feeling of irritation against me and against Carrie, who, it seems, is my half-sister. But he attacked me suddenly, knocked me on the head, and tried to drown me. There, now you know as much as I do. Can you wonder now that I was obliged to cut myself off from my friends, with such a burden as that on my mind?"

Mr. Wedmore was silent for a time.

"Poor lad!" he said at last. "Poor lad! I think you might have found some better way out of it than holding your tongue and shutting yourself up from all your friends; but, on the other hand, it was a jolly difficult position. Jolly difficult! And so you never even told Max?"

"No, though I more than once felt inclined to. But it was such a ghastly business altogether that I thought I'd better hold my tongue, especially as—I was afraid—it might filter through him to—to somebody else—somebody who couldn't be told a beastly secret like that."

Mr. Wedmore nodded.

"And this girl—this Carrie?" said he.

Dudley's face lighted up.

"That's my one comfort in all this," said he, "that it has led to my finding out the girl and doing something for her. I never heard of her before. But my father told me she was my half-sister, and they say there is something in our faces which confirms the story. Anyhow, she's a grand girl, and I'm going to look after her. She's gone away—"

"Gone away!" repeated Mr. Wedmore, disconcerted.

There had been a lull in the quarrel between him and his son for the last few days, during which Carrie had avoided Max and Max had avoided his father.

"Yes," said Dudley. "She would go, and she thought it best to go without any fuss, leaving me to say good-bye for her. She's all right. I'm going to look after her; and she's going into training as a hospital nurse."

"Oh, well, I'm sure I hope she'll get on," said Mr. Wedmore, rather vaguely.

He had been getting used, during the last few days, to the thought of the pretty, blue-eyed girl as a daughter-in-law, and he found himself now rather hoping than fearing that Max would stick to his choice.

"Well," said he at last, "I must send the ladies to have a look at you now, I suppose. I wouldn't let them talk my head off on the first day, if I were you."

Dudley sprang to his feet. He seemed restless and excited.

"I won't talk much. I won't let them talk much," said he, in an unsteady voice. "But may I see—may I speak to Doreen?"

Mr. Wedmore nodded good-humoredly.

"Well, you may speak to her, if she'll let you," said he, cheerfully. "But, really, she's a thorny young person. She's treated young Lindsay, the curate, very cruelly, and I'm sure he's a much better looking fellow than you. However, you can try your luck."

Dudley did not wait for any more encouragement. No sooner had Mr. Wedmore left the room than the convalescent followed. He found Doreen in the hall, putting a handful of letters on the table ready for the post. She started when she turned and saw him, and, leaning back with her hands upon the table, she asked him what he meant by leaving the nice, warm, ox-roasting fire they had built up expressly for him upstairs.

"I hear you've been treating the curate very badly," said he. "I've come to ask for an explanation."

Doreen looked down at the tip of her shoe, and, after a pause, said demurely:

"Well, I suppose if you don't know the reason, nobody does."

"Why, was it anything connected with me, then?"

"So I have been informed," answered Doreen, more primly than ever.

And then he waited for her to look up; and when she did, he kissed her. And they didn't exchange a word upon the subject of the long misunderstanding, but just strolled into the dining-room and saw pictures in the fire together.

There was no trial and no scandal; there were rumors, and that was all. Max remained true to his fancy for Carrie, and gave proof of his sincerity by settling down to work in a merchant's office, after the manner so dear to his father's heart. And in return, Mr. Wedmore consented to Carrie's being invited down to The Beeches in the spring, to be present at Doreen's wedding.

And when Carrie came, several details concerning the life led by her and the supposed Mrs. Higgs in the house by the docks came to light, and the last remains of the mystery were cleared away.

She told how her father, passing himself off as Mrs. Higgs, an old servant in the Horne family, of whom Carrie had heard in the lifetime of Miss Aldridge, had found her out, had touched her heart by a kindness evidently genuine, and had prevailed upon her to go and make her home in the deserted house, which, Mrs. Higgs said, had been intended for her by her late master.

In the empty house they found that an entrance had been made into the adjoining warehouse, which had been used by a gang of thieves as a hiding-place for stolen goods. In the little front shop these ingenious persons had fashioned an ingenious hiding-place by hollowing out a tunnel to the river. Into this tunnel the water flowed at high tide; but when the tide was low an entrance could be effected from the river, by which the thieves could pass in and out, and in which they could safely deposit, in a chest in the slimy earth, property too valuable to be left above ground.

Carrie explained how Mrs. Higgs fraternized with the thieves, before she herself guessed who they were, and how she had got used to them before she learned their character, though not before she had grown suspicious about them. How she had seen Dudley with Mrs. Higgs, without knowing who he was, and how she had set him down as a suspicious character from the furtive manner of his visits. How she herself posted the two letters, the one to Edward Jacobs and the other to Dudley, which brought them to the place on the same day. How she herself was sent out of the way on that occasion, and returned in time to witness, through the hole in the floor above, the stooping over the body by Dudley, and his drawing back covered with blood, which she took for the actual murder. How Mrs. Higgs and Dudley had then left the house together, while she was too sick with fright to move. How she had remained outside the house until she saw Max; and how, when he was gone, and Mrs. Higgs had come back, she found that the manner of the supposed old woman had changed toward her and grown unbearably cruel and harsh. How she had been left for days and nights by herself, until she resolved to bear it no longer. And how, when Mrs. Higgs had sent her to Dudley's chambers with the message about Dick Barker, she had told her never to come back again.

Carrie added that she herself had always been treated with kindness, not only by the gang, of whom, indeed, they saw little, but by such of the men and boys on the barges which came to the wharf as knew her, and "winked" at her unauthorized tenancy of the deserted house.

In broad daylight, in the company of half a dozen policemen, Max and Dudley revisited the house together. They found the holes in the wall through which "Mrs. Higgs" took stock of Max on the occasion of his first visit; they tested the ingenious device by means of which the middle boards in the front shop could be made to fall and deposit anything laid upon them in the tunnel beneath. They found the hole in which Mrs. Higgs had stepped, and the pole which had been used to underpin the middle boards. This hole extended under the floor of the kitchen, so that by creeping under the flooring from the one room to the other the pole could be withdrawn or replaced without the knowledge of a person in the front room.

This final discovery explained to Max the manner in which the body of Jacobs had been made to disappear while he himself was in the room with it.

The gang, of which the illustrious Dick Barker had formed one, had wisely disappeared, never to return.

But one day, when Carrie, in her nurse's dress, was walking along Oxford Street, in the company of Max, to whom, with Mr. Wedmore's permission, she was now engaged, she felt a hand in her pocket, and turning quickly, found that she was having her purse stolen, "for auld lang syne," by Dick Barker.

Max recognized in the well-dressed young man, with the low type of face, the man whom he had once supposed to be his rival.

As Dick promptly disappeared, Carrie and Max looked at each other, and the girl burst into tears.

"Oh, Max, if it hadn't been for you—" whispered she, as she dried her eyes quickly and hurried on with him.

"And, oh, Carrie, if it hadn't been for you—" whispered Max back, as he took her into the shop of the Hungarian Bread Company, and made her have a cup of tea.