“Well?” said Daisy pertly.  “How about the lodger, Ellen?  Is he all right?”

“Yes,” she said stiffly.  “Of course he is!”

“He must feel pretty dull sitting up there all by himself—­awful lonely-like, I call it,” said the girl.

But her, stepmother remained silent.

“Whatever does he do with himself all day?” persisted Daisy.

“Just now he’s reading the Bible,” Mrs. Bunting answered, shortly and dryly.

“Well, I never!  That’s a funny thing for a gentleman to do!”

And Joe, alone of her three listeners, laughed—­a long hearty peal of amusement.

“There’s nothing to laugh at,” said Mrs. Bunting sharply.  “I should feel ashamed of being caught laughing at anything connected with the Bible.”

And poor Joe became suddenly quite serious.  This was the first time that Mrs. Bunting had ever spoken really nastily to him, and he answered very humbly, “I beg pardon.  I know I oughtn’t to have laughed at anything to do with the Bible, but you see, Miss Daisy said it so funny-like, and, by all accounts, your lodger must be a queer card, Mrs. Bunting.”

“He’s no queerer than many people I could mention,” she said quickly; and with these enigmatic words she got up, and left the room.

CHAPTER XXIV

Each hour of the days that followed held for Bunting its full meed of aching fear and suspense.

The unhappy man was ever debating within himself what course he should pursue, and, according to his mood and to the state of his mind at any particular moment, he would waver between various widely-differing lines of action.

He told himself again and again, and with fretful unease, that the most awful thing about it all was that he wasn’t sure.  If only he could have been sure, he might have made up his mind exactly what it was he ought to do.

But when telling himself this he was deceiving himself, and he was vaguely conscious of the fact; for, from Bunting’s point of view, almost any alternative would have been preferable to that which to some, nay, perhaps to most, householders would have seemed the only thing to do, namely, to go to the police.  But Londoners of Bunting’s class have an uneasy fear of the law.  To his mind it would be ruin for him and for his Ellen to be mixed up publicly in such a terrible affair.  No one concerned in the business would give them and their future a thought, but it would track them to their dying day, and, above all, it would make it quite impossible for them ever to get again into a good joint situation.  It was that for which Bunting, in his secret soul, now longed with all his heart.

No, some other way than going to the police must be found—­and he racked his slow brain to find it.

The worst of it was that every hour that went by made his future course more difficult and more delicate, and increased the awful weight on his conscience.