‘Hollo!’ Bunce cried, finding no light.  ‘What’s up?  Nellie!  Jack!’

It was usual, since the eldest child was at the hospital, for the landlady to come and light a lamp for the two little ones when it grew dusk.  Bunce had an exaggerated fear of giving trouble, and only sheer necessity had compelled him to request this small service.

‘They’ll be downstairs, I suppose,’ he muttered, striking a match.

The hungry room had no occupants.  On the floor lay a skeleton doll, a toy tambourine, a whipping-top, and a wried tin whistle.  There was one bedstead, and a bed made up on a mattress laid on the floor.  On a round clothless table stood two plates, one with a piece of bread and butter remaining, and two cups and saucers.  The fire had died out.

A shrill voice was calling from below stairs.

’Mr. Bunce!  Mr. Bunce!  Your children is gone out with Miss Nancarrow as far as the butcher’s.  They won’t be more than five minutes, I was to say, if you came in.’

‘Thank you, Mrs. Ladds,’ Bunce replied briefly.

He came in and closed the door.

‘That’s a new thing,’ he said, as if doubtful whether to be satisfied or not.  ’I hope she won’t begin taking ’em about.  Still, she isn’t a bad lot, that girl.  Do you know anything of her?’

’Why, yes.  I’ve heard of her often from Miss Trent.  Isn’t she a good deal with Ackroyd?’

’Can’t say.  She’s not a bad lot.  She’s going to take my Bessie down to Eastbourne at the end of the week.’

‘But why don’t you go yourself?  It would do you good.’

Bunce shrugged his shoulders.

’No, I can’t go myself.  Just for the child’s sake, I have to put up with that kind of thing, but I don’t like it.  It’s charity, after all, and I couldn’t face those people at the home.’

‘What home is it?’ Grail asked.  He knew, but out of delicacy wished the explanation to come from Bunce.

’I don’t know as it has any name.  It seems to be in connection with the Children’s Hospital.  The matron, or whatever you call her, is a Mrs. Ormonde.’

‘Oh, I know about her!’ Gilbert exclaimed.  ’She’s a friend of Mr. Egremont’s.  He’s s spoken of her once or twice to me.  You needn’t be afraid of meeting her.  She’s a lady who has given up her own house for this purpose:  as good a woman, I believe, as lives.’

‘Well,’ said Bunce, doggedly, ’I’m thankful to her, but I can’t face her.  What’s this, I’d like to know?’

His eye caught something that looked like a small pamphlet lying near the fireplace.  He stooped to pick it up.

‘If they’re beginning to throw my papers about—­’

The sudden silence caused Gilbert to look at him.  Bunce was not a well-favoured man, but ordinarily a rugged honesty helped the misfortunes of his features, a sort of good-humour, too, which seemed unable to find free play.  But of a sudden his face had become ferocious, startling in its exasperated surprise, its savage wrath.  His eyes glared blood-shot, his teeth were uncovered, his jaws protruded as if in an animal impulse to rend.