******

It must have been about four o’clock when there came a ring at the front door.

The three were sitting chatting together, for Daisy had washed up —­she really was saving her stepmother a good bit of trouble—­and the girl was now amusing her elders by a funny account of Old Aunt’s pernickety ways.

“Whoever can that be?” said Bunting, looking up.  “It’s too early for Joe Chandler, surely.”

“I’ll go,” said his wife, hurriedly jumping up from her chair.  “I’ll go!  We don’t want no strangers in here.”

And as she stepped down the short bit of passage she said to herself, “A clue?  What clue?”

But when she opened the front door a glad sigh of relief broke from her.  “Why, Joe?  We never thought ’twas you!  But you’re very welcome, I’m sure.  Come in.”

And Chandler came in, a rather sheepish look on his good-looking, fair young face.

“I thought maybe that Mr. Bunting would like to know—­” he began, in a loud, cheerful voice, and Mrs. Bunting hurriedly checked him.  She didn’t want the lodger upstairs to hear what young Chandler might be going to say.

“Don’t talk so loud,” she said a little sharply.  “The lodger is not very well to-day.  He’s had a cold,” she added hastily, “and during the last two or three days he hasn’t been able to go out.”

She wondered at her temerity, her—­her hypocrisy, and that moment, those few words, marked an epoch in Ellen Bunting’s life.  It was the first time she had told a bold and deliberate lie.  She was one of those women—­there are many, many such—­to whom there is a whole world of difference between the suppression of the truth and the utterance of an untruth.

But Chandler paid no heed to her remarks.  “Has Miss Daisy arrived?” he asked, in a lower voice.

She nodded.  And then he went through into the room where the father and daughter were sitting.

“Well?” said Bunting, starting up.  “Well, Joe?  Now you can tell us all about that mysterious clue.  I suppose it’d be too good news to expect you to tell us they’ve caught him?”

“No fear of such good news as that yet awhile.  If they’d caught him,” said Joe ruefully, “well, I don’t suppose I should be here, Mr. Bunting.  But the Yard are circulating a description at last.  And—­well, they’ve found his weapon!”

“No?” cried Bunting excitedly.  “You don’t say so!  Whatever sort of a thing is it?  And are they sure ’tis his?”

“Well, ’tain’t sure, but it seems to be likely.”

Mrs. Bunting had slipped into the room and shut the door behind her.  But she was still standing with her back against the door, looking at the group in front of her.  None of them were thinking of her —­she thanked God for that!  She could hear everything that was said without joining in the talk and excitement.

“Listen to this!” cried Joe Chandler exultantly. “’Tain’t given out yet—­not for the public, that is—­but we was all given it by eight o’clock this morning.  Quick work that, eh?” He read out: