But Carrie went on, as if he had not spoken: "After that day she changed; she was irritable, unkind, neglectful--not like the same woman. She left me alone sometimes; she gave me no food at others; she hid herself away from me; she was angry at the least thing. And then--then," went on the girl, in a frightful whisper, "I found out something." "What was it?" "That some one used to get into the place at night--I don't know how; some one she was afraid of--a man." "Well?" said Max, excited by her tone. "I have heard him--seen him twice," went on Carrie, in the lowest of whispers. "And I believe--" "Yes, yes; go on!" "That it was Mr. Dudley Horne." "Oh, rubbish!" Carrie was silent. Max went on, indignantly: "How could you take such a silly idea into your head? What reason should Mr. Horne have for creeping about a hole like that at night?" "Well, what reason should he have for coming to it at any time? Yet you know he came in the daytime." It was the turn of Max to remain silent. There was a long pause, and then Carrie went on: "I used to sleep in a little attic over the outhouse, just a corner of the roof it was. And twice at night I have heard a noise underneath, and looked through the cracks in the boards and seen a man down there, with a light. And each time, when the light was put out and the noise had stopped, I have gone downstairs and found the doors bolted still on the inside." "Well, the place seems to be honeycombed with ways in and ways out. The strange man either went out by some way even you knew nothing about, or else Mrs. Higgs let him out." "No, she didn't. I should have heard or seen her." "Well, but what reason can you have for supposing that this man was Mr. Dudley Horne?" "Once I saw his face," answered Carrie. "And you think it was the face of this man here beside you?" Max struck a light and held it over the face of the unconscious Dudley. Carrie looked at him steadily. "Well," she said at last, "it did look like him, that's all I can say." Max frowned uneasily. But after a few moments a new thought struck him, and he turned to her sharply. The match he had struck had burned itself out, and they were again in darkness. "If Mrs. Higgs was only a tool in his hands, as you suggest, for some mysterious purposes which nobody can understand or guess at, how do you account for her trying to drown him?" "They must have quarreled," said Carrie, quickly. Then, instantly perceiving that she had made an admission, she added: "That is, supposing she had anything to do with it." "Amiable old lady!" exclaimed Max. The mystery of the whole affair hung over both him and Carrie like a pall; and the long night-drive seemed never-ending in the death-like silence. Max tried from time to time to break it, but Carrie grew more reserved as the hours went by, until her curt answers ceased altogether.