Page:Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes - The Lodger.djvu/199

Rh What Mrs. Bunting had been looking for—what at last she had found—was the time and place of the inquest which was to be held that day. The hour named was a rather odd time—two o’clock in the afternoon, but, from Mrs. Bunting’s point of view, it was most convenient.

By two o’clock, nay, by half-past one, the lodger would have had his lunch; by hurrying matters a little she and Bunting would have had their dinner, and—and Daisy wasn’t coming home till tea-time.

She got up out of her husband’s chair. "I think you’re right," she said, in a quick, hoarse tone. "I mean about me seeing a doctor, Bunting. I think I will go and see a doctor this very afternoon."

"Wouldn’t you like me to go with you?" he asked.

"No, that I wouldn’t. In fact I wouldn’t go at all if you was to go with me."

"All right," he said vexedly. "Please yourself, my dear; you know best."

"I should think I did know best where my own health is concerned."

Even Bunting was incensed by this lack of gratitude. "’Twas I said, long ago, you ought to go and see the doctor; ’twas you said you wouldn’t!" he exclaimed pugnaciously.

"Well, I’ve never said you was never right, have I? At any rate, I’m going."

"Have you a pain anywhere?" He stared at her with a look of real solicitude on his fat, phlegmatic face.

Somehow Ellen didn’t look right, standing there opposite him. Her shoulders seemed to have shrunk; even her cheeks had fallen in a little. She had never looked so