“Don’t you make any mistake—­he’ll come back for that,” said Bunting, with decision.

But Mrs. Bunting shook her head.  She knew better.  “Now,” she said, “you go off up to bed.  It’s no use us sitting up any longer.”

And Bunting acquiesced.

She ran down and got him a bedroom candle—­there was no gas in the little back bedroom upstairs.  And then she watched him go slowly up.

Suddenly he turned and came down again.  “Ellen,” he said, in an urgent whisper, “if I was you I’d take the chain off the door, and I’d lock myself in—­that’s what I’m going to do.  Then he can sneak in and take his dirty money away.”

Mrs. Bunting neither nodded nor shook her head.  Slowly she went downstairs, and there she carried out half of Bunting’s advice.  She took, that is, the chain off the front door.  But she did not go to bed, neither did she lock herself in.  She sat up all night, waiting.  At half-past seven she made herself a cup of tea, and then she went into her bedroom.

Daisy opened her eyes.

“Why, Ellen,” she said, “I suppose I was that tired, and slept so sound, that I never heard you come to bed or get up—­funny, wasn’t it?”

“Young people don’t sleep as light as do old folks,” Mrs. Bunting said sententiously.

“Did the lodger come in after all?  I suppose he’s upstairs now?”

Mrs. Bunting shook her head.  “It looks as if ’twould be a fine day for you down at Richmond,” she observed in a kindly tone.

And Daisy smiled, a very happy, confident little smile.

******

That evening Mrs. Bunting forced herself to tell young Chandler that their lodger had, so to speak, disappeared.  She and Bunting had thought carefully over what they would say, and so well did they carry out their programme, or, what is more likely, so full was young Chandler of the long happy day he and Daisy had spent together, that he took their news very calmly.

“Gone away, has he?” he observed casually.  “Well, I hope he paid up all right?”

“Oh, yes, yes,” said Mrs. Bunting hastily.  “No trouble of that sort.”

And Bunting said shamefacedly, “Aye, aye, the lodger was quite an honest gentleman, Joe.  But I feel worried, about him.  He was such a poor, gentle chap—­not the sort o’ man one likes to think of as wandering about by himself.”

“You always said he was ’centric,” said Joe thoughtfully.

“Yes, he was that,” said Bunting slowly.  “Regular right-down queer.  Leetle touched, you know, under the thatch,” and, as he tapped his head significantly, both young people burst out laughing.

“Would you like a description of him circulated?” asked Joe good-naturedly.

Mr. and Mrs. Bunting looked at one another.

“No, I don’t think so.  Not yet awhile at any rate.  ’Twould upset him awfully, you see.”

And Joe acquiesced.  “You’d be surprised at the number o’ people who disappears and are never heard of again,” he said cheerfully.  And then he got up, very reluctantly.