As she hurriedly turned up the gas she was glad, glad indeed, that she had summoned up sufficient energy, two days ago, to give the room a thorough turn-out.

It had remained for a long time in the state in which it had been left by its last dishonest, dirty occupants when they had been scared into going away by Bunting’s rough threats of the police.  But now it was in apple-pie order, with one paramount exception, of which Mrs. Bunting was painfully aware.  There were no white curtains to the windows, but that omission could soon be remedied if this gentleman really took the lodgings.

But what was this—?  The stranger was looking round him rather dubiously.  “This is rather—­rather too grand for me,” he said at last “I should like to see your other rooms, Mrs. er—­”

“—­Bunting,” she said softly.  “Bunting, sir.”

And as she spoke the dark, heavy load of care again came down and settled on her sad, burdened heart.  Perhaps she had been mistaken, after all—­or rather, she had not been mistaken in one sense, but perhaps this gentleman was a poor gentleman—­too poor, that is, to afford the rent of more than one room, say eight or ten shillings a week; eight or ten shillings a week would be very little use to her and Bunting, though better than nothing at all.

“Will you just look at the bedroom, sir?”

“No,” he said, “no.  I think I should like to see what you have farther up the house, Mrs.—­,” and then, as if making a prodigious mental effort, he brought out her name, “Bunting,” with a kind of gasp.

The two top rooms were, of course, immediately above the drawing-room floor.  But they looked poor and mean, owing to the fact that they were bare of any kind of ornament.  Very little trouble had been taken over their arrangement; in fact, they had been left in much the same condition as that in which the Buntings had found them.

For the matter of that, it is difficult to make a nice, genteel sitting-room out of an apartment of which the principal features are a sink and a big gas stove.  The gas stove, of an obsolete pattern, was fed by a tiresome, shilling-in-the-slot arrangement.  It had been the property of the people from whom the Buntings had taken over the lease of the house, who, knowing it to be of no monetary value, had thrown it in among the humble fittings they had left behind.

What furniture there was in the room was substantial and clean, as everything belonging to Mrs. Bunting was bound to be, but it was a bare, uncomfortable-looking place, and the landlady now felt sorry that she had done nothing to make it appear more attractive.

To her surprise, however, her companion’s dark, sensitive, hatchet-shaped face became irradiated with satisfaction.  “Capital!  Capital!” he exclaimed, for the first time putting down the bag he held at his feet, and rubbing his long, thin hands together with a quick, nervous movement.