smissed--even a
little snubbed. "All right, sir," she said. "I'll only just let
you know when I've your supper ready."

CHAPTER III

But what was a little snub compared with the intense relief and joy
of going down and telling Bunting of the great piece of good fortune
which had fallen their way?

Staid Mrs. Bunting seemed to make but one leap down the steep stairs.
In the hall, however, she pulled herself together, and tried to still
her agitation. She had always disliked and despised any show of
emotion; she called such betrayal of feeling "making a fuss."

Opening the door of their sitting-room, she stood for a moment
looking at her husband's bent back, and she realised, with a pang
of pain, how the last few weeks had aged him.

Bunting suddenly looked round, and, seeing his wife, stood up. He
put the paper he had been holding down on to the table: "Well," he
said, "well, who was it, then?"

He felt rather ashamed of himself; it was he who ought to have
answered the door and done all that parleying of which he had heard
murmurs.

And then in a moment his wife's hand shot out, and the ten sovereigns
fell in a little clinking heap on the table.

"Look there!" she whispered, with an excited, tearful quiver in her
voice. "Look there, Bunting!"

And Bunting did look there, but with a troubled, frowning gaze.

He was not quick-witted, but at once he jumped to the conclusion
that his wife had just had in a furniture dealer, and that this
ten pounds represented all their nice furniture upstairs. If that
were so, then it was the beginning of the end. That furniture in
the first-floor front had cost--Ellen had reminded him of the fact
bitterly only yesterday--seventeen pounds nine shillings, and
every single item had been a bargain. It was too bad that she had
only got ten pounds for it.

Yet he hadn't the heart to reproach her.

He did not speak as he looked across at her, and meeting that
troubled, rebuking glance, she guessed what it was that he thought
had happened.

"We've a new lodger!" she cried. "And--and, Bunting? He's quite
the gentleman! He actually offered to pay four weeks in advance, at
two guineas a week."

"No, never!"

Bunting moved quickly round the table, and together they stood there,
fascinated by the little heap of gold. "But there's ten sovereigns
here," he said suddenly.

"Yes, the gentleman said I'd have to buy some things for him
to-morrow. And, oh, Bunting, he's so well sp