Page:Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes - The Lodger.djvu/147

Rh to the plot which had been hatching when she came in, that had no chance of success; Bunting would never dare let Daisy send out another telegram contradicting the first. Besides, Daisy’s stepmother shrewdly suspected that by now the girl herself wouldn’t care to do such a thing. Daisy had plenty of sense tucked away somewhere in her pretty little head. If it ever became her fate to live as a married woman in London, it would be best to stay on the right side of Aunt Margaret.

And when she came into her kitchen the stepmother’s heart became very soft, for Daisy had got everything beautifully ready. In fact, there was nothing to do but to boil Mr. Sleuth’s two eggs. Feeling suddenly more cheerful than she had felt of late, Mrs. Bunting took the tray upstairs.

"As it was rather late, I didn’t wait for you to ring, sir," she said.

And the lodger looked up from the table where, as usual, he was studying with painful, almost agonising intentness, the Book. "Quite right, Mrs. Bunting—quite right! I have been pondering over the command, ‘Work while it is yet light.’"

"Yes, sir?" she said, and a queer, cold feeling stole over her heart. "Yes, sir?"

"‘The spirit is willing, but the flesh—the flesh is weak,’" said Mr. Sleuth, with a heavy sigh.

"You studies too hard, and too long—that’s what’s ailing you, sir," said Mr. Sleuth’s landlady suddenly.

When Mrs. Bunting went down again she found that a great deal had been settled in her absence; among