"You vile old hag!" thought he to himself. And then his thoughts flew to
Carrie, and he asked himself what the attraction could be which bound
her to this wicked old woman.

Mrs. Higgs, after staring at him in dead silence for what seemed a long
time, asked, as composedly as if their meeting had been the most natural
thing in the world:

"Where's your friend, young man?"

"W--what friend?" stammered Max.

"Oh, you don't know, I suppose!" retorted Mrs. Higgs, derisively. "No
more than you know what you wanted to come spying about Plumtree Wharf
for, eh?"

Max made no answer. There came a vixenish gleam into the old woman's
faded eyes.

"What did you come for, eh?" pursued she, sharply. "Who sent you? Not
he, I know! When he's got anything to do at the wharf he comes himself."

And Mrs. Higgs gave an ugly, mirthless chuckle.

As Max stared at the withered, lined face, which was growing each moment
more repulsive in his eyes, a feeling of horror and of intense pity for
Dudley seized him. To be pursued, as his friend evidently was pursued,
by this vicious old hag, was a fate hideous enough to expiate every
crime in the Decalogue.