The Wharf By The Docks Part 19

"All right," said she. "Set the police on us by all means. Oh, do--do!

But--just mention first to your friend, Mr. Horne, that that's what you're going to do. Just mention it to him, and see the thanks you'll get for your trouble!"

These words came upon Max with a great shock. In the excitement of his own adventures in this place, he had quite forgotten his friend, Dudley Horne, and the errand which had first brought him into the neighborhood.

He had forgotten, also, what he had from the first only half believed--the girl's words connecting Dudley with a murder committed within those walls.

Now that the remembrance was thus abruptly brought back to him, he felt as if he wanted to gasp for breath. Carrie watched him, and presently made a sign to him to follow her. Scrambling out to the open s.p.a.ce on the wharf, she made for the spot close to the water where Max had stood to watch the man whom Carrie had called "d.i.c.k."

When Max came up to her, the girl was standing close under the eaves of the outhouse on the bank, leaning against the wall. He could scarcely see anything of her face in the darkness, but he was struck by something strangely moving in the tones of her voice as she broke the silence.

"Look here," she said, "I want you to make me a promise. Come, it ought not to be difficult; for I got you out of a nice mess; remember that.

You've got to give me your word that you will say nothing about your adventures to-day, either to the police or to anybody else."

"I can't promise that. And why on earth do you want me to do so? Surely you can have no real sympathy with the people who do the things that are done in there--"

Carrie interrupted him, breaking in upon him abruptly:

"What things?"

"Murders, and--"

"The murder was done by your friend, not by us."

"'Us?' Surely you don't identify yourself with these people?"

"I do. They are my friends--the only friends I have."

"But they are thieves, blackmailers!" said Max, saying not what he knew but what he guessed.

"What have they stolen from you? What harm have they done to you or anybody that you know of? All this is because my Granny didn't approve of my having a stranger in, and had you shut into a dark room to give you a fright."

"But you forget you said just now you had got me out of a nice mess."

"I--I meant that you were frightened."

"And with good reason. After what I saw and heard in that room, I should be worse than a criminal myself if I didn't inform the police about the existence of the place. I believe it's one of the vilest dens in London."

Carrie was silent. She did not attempt to ask him what it was that he had heard and seen while in that room. And Max felt his heart sink within him. He would have had her question, protest, deny. And instead she seemed tacitly to take the truth of all his accusations for granted.

"Don't you see," he presently went on, almost in a coaxing tone, "that it's for your own good that you should have to go away? I won't believe--I can't--that you like this underground, hole-and-corner existence, this life that is dishonest all through. Come, now, confess that you don't like it--that you only live like this because you can't help it, or because you think you can't help it--and I'll forgive you."

There was a long pause. Then he heard a little, hard, cynical laugh. He tried hard to see her face; but although he caught now and then a gleam of the great eyes, the wonderful eyes that had fascinated him, he could not distinguish the expression, hardly even the outline of her features.

When she at last spoke, it was in a reckless, willful tone.

"Forgive me! What have you to forgive, except that I was fool enough to ask you into the house? And if you've suffered for that, it seems I shall have to, too, in the long run; and I'm not going to say I don't like the life, for I like it better than any I've lived before."

"What!"

"Yes, yes, I tell you. I'm not a heroine, ready to drudge away my life in any round of dull work that'll keep body and soul together. I'd rather have the excitement of living what you call a hole-and-corner life than spend my days st.i.tch--st.i.tch--st.i.tching--dust--dust--dusting, as I used to have to do with Miss Aldridge, as I should have to do if I went away from here."

"Well, but there are other things you could do," pleaded Max, with vague thoughts of setting his own sisters to work to find this erratic child of the riverside some more seemly mode of life than her present one.

"What other things?"

"Why, you could--you could teach in a school or in a family."

"No, I couldn't. I don't know enough. And I wouldn't like it, either.

And I should have to leave Granny, who wants me, and is fond of me--"

"And d.i.c.k!" burst out Max, spitefully. "You would have to give up the society of d.i.c.k."

It was possible, even in the darkness, to perceive that this remark startled Carrie. She said, in astonishment which she could not hide:

"And what do you know about d.i.c.k?"

"I know that you wouldn't care for a life that is repugnant to every notion of decency, if it were not for d.i.c.k," retorted Max, with rash warmth.

Carrie laughed again.

"I'm afraid you got your information from the wrong quarter," said she, quietly. "Not from d.i.c.k himself, that's certain."

There was some relief to Max in this confident a.s.sertion, but not much.

Judging d.i.c.k by his own feelings, he was sure that person had not reached the stage of intimacy at which Carrie called him by his Christian name without hankering after further marks of her favor.

"He is fond of you, of course!" said Max, feeling that he had no right to say this, but justifying into himself on the ground of his wish to help her out of her wretched position.

"Well, I suppose he is."

"Are you--of course I've no right to ask--but are you fond of him?"

Carrie shook her head with indifference.

"I like him in my way," said she. "Not in his way. There's a great difference."

"And do you like any man--in his way?"

The girl replied with a significant gesture of disgust, which had in it nothing of coquetry, nothing of affectation.

"No," said she, shortly.

"Why do you answer like that?"

"Why? Oh, well, if you knew all that I've seen, you wouldn't wonder, you wouldn't want to ask."

"You won't always feel like that. You won't, when you have got away from this hole, and are living among decent people."

"The 'decent people' are those who leave me alone," said Carrie, shortly, "as they do here."