Page:Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes - The Lodger.djvu/86

76 "Two other murders," he said soberly.

"Two? That’s worse news!" She turned so pale—a sallow greenish-white—that Bunting thought she was again going queer.

"Ellen?" he said warningly, "Ellen, now do have a care! I can’t think what’s come over you about these murders. Turn your mind away from them, do! We needn’t talk about them—not so much, that is"

"But I wants to talk about them," cried Mrs. Bunting hysterically.

The husband and wife were standing, one each side of the table, the man with his back to the fire, the woman with her back to the door.

Bunting, staring across at his wife, felt sadly perplexed and disturbed. She really did seem ill; even her slight, spare figure looked shrunk. For the first time, so he told himself ruefully, Ellen was beginning to look her full age. Her slender hands—she had kept the pretty, soft white hands of the woman who has never done rough work—grasped the edge of the table with a convulsive movement.

Bunting didn’t at all like the look of her. "Oh, dear," he said to himself, "I do hope Ellen isn’t going to be ill! That would be a to-do just now."

"Tell me about it," she commanded, in a low voice. "Can’t you see I’m waiting to hear? Be quick now, Bunting!"

"There isn’t very much to tell," he said reluctantly. "There’s precious little in this paper, anyway. But the cabman what brought Daisy told me"

"Well?"