"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?" CHAPTER XXVI. 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.