Languidly she began dressing herself to the accompaniment of distant tramping and of noise of passing traffic, which increased in volume and in sound as the moments slipped by.

******

When Mrs. Bunting went down into her kitchen everything looked just as she had left it, and there was no trace of the acrid smell she had expected to find there.  Instead, the cavernous, whitewashed room was full of fog, but she noticed that, though the shutters were bolted and barred as she had left them, the windows behind them had been widely opened to the air.  She had left them shut.

Making a “spill” out of a twist of newspaper—­she had been taught the art as a girl by one of her old mistresses—­she stooped and flung open the oven-door of her gas-stove.  Yes, it was as she had expected, a fierce heat had been generated there since she had last used the oven, and through to the stone floor below had fallen a mass of black, gluey soot.

Mrs. Bunting took the ham and eggs that she had bought the previous day for her own and Bunting’s breakfast upstairs, and broiled them over the gas-ring in their sitting-room.  Her husband watched her in surprised silence.  She had never done such a thing before.

“I couldn’t stay down there,” she said; “it was so cold and foggy.  I thought I’d make breakfast up here, just for to-day.”

“Yes,” he said kindly; “that’s quite right, Ellen.  I think you’ve done quite right, my dear.”

But, when it came to the point, his wife could not eat any of the nice breakfast she had got ready; she only had another cup of tea.

“I’m afraid you’re ill, Ellen?” Bunting asked solicitously.

“No,” she said shortly; “I’m not ill at all.  Don’t be silly!  The thought of that horrible thing happening so close by has upset me, and put me off my food.  Just hark to them now!”

Through their closed windows penetrated the sound of scurrying feet and loud, ribald laughter.  What a crowd; nay, what a mob, must be hastening busily to and from the spot where there was now nothing to be seen!

Mrs. Bunting made her husband lock the front gate.  “I don’t want any of those ghouls in here!” she exclaimed angrily.  And then, “What a lot of idle people there are in the world!” she said.

CHAPTER XVI

Bunting began moving about the room restlessly.  He would go to the window; stand there awhile staring out at the people hurrying past; then, coming back to the fireplace, sit down.

But he could not stay long quiet.  After a glance at his paper, up he would rise from his chair, and go to the window again.

“I wish you’d stay still,” his wife said at last.  And then, a few minutes later, “Hadn’t you better put your hat and coat on and go out?” she exclaimed.

And Bunting, with a rather shamed expression, did put on his hat and coat and go out.