r the lodger's footsteps overhead. She was
very curious to know whether he had gone into his nice sitting-room,
or straight upstairs, to that cold experiment-room, as he now always
called it.

But her husband went on as if he had not heard her, and she gave up
trying to listen to what was going on above.

"It wouldn't be very pleasant to run up against such a party as that
in the fog, eh, Ellen?" He spoke as if the notion had a certain
pleasant thrill in it after all.

"What stuff you do talk!" said Mrs. Bunting sharply. And then she
got up. Her husband's remarks had disturbed her. Why couldn't they
talk of something pleasant when they did have a quiet bit of time
together?

Bunting looked down again at his paper, and she moved quietly about
the room. Very soon it would be time for supper, and to-night she
was going to cook her husband a nice piece of toasted cheese. That
fortunate man, as she was fond of telling him, with mingled contempt
and envy, had the digestion of an ostrich, and yet he was rather
fanciful, as gentlemen's servants who have lived in good places
often are.

Yes, Bunting was very lucky in the matter of his digestion. Mrs.
Bunting prided herself on having a nice mind, and she would never
have allowed an unrefined word--such a word as "stomach," for
instance, to say nothing of an even plainer term--to pass her
lips, except, of course, to a doctor in a sick-room.

Mr. Sleuth's landlady did not go down at once into her cold kitchen;
instead, with a sudden furtive movement, she opened the door leading
into her bedroom, and then, closing the door quietly, stepped back
into the darkness, and stood motionless, listening.

At first she heard nothing, but gradually there stole on her
listening ears the sound of someone moving softly about in the
room just overhead, that is, in Mr. Sleuth's bedroom. But, try as
she might, it was impossible for her to guess what the lodger was
doing.

At last she heard him open the door leading out on the little
landing. She could hear the stairs creaking. That meant, no doubt,
that Mr. Sleuth would pass the rest of the evening in the cheerless
room above. He hadn't spent any time up there for quite a long
while--in fact, not for nearly ten days. 'Twas odd he chose to-night,
when it was so foggy, to carry out an experiment.

She groped her way to a chair and sat down. She felt very tired--
strangely tired, as if she had gone through some great physical
exertion.