Page:Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes - The Lodger.djvu/90

80 still feeling the worry now. I don’t seem able to forget it. Those days of waiting, of—of" she restrained herself; another moment and the word "starving" would have left her lips.

"But everything’s all right now," said Bunting eagerly, "all right, thanks to Mr. Sleuth, that is."

"Yes," repeated his wife, in a low, strange tone of voice. "Yes, we’re all right now, and as you say, Bunting, it’s all along of Mr. Sleuth."

She walked across to a chair and sat down on it. "I’m just a little tottery still," she muttered.

And Daisy, looking at her, turned to her father and said in a whisper, but not so low but that Mrs. Bunting heard her, "Don’t you think Ellen ought to see a doctor, father? He might give her something that would pull her round."

"I won’t see no doctor!" said Mrs. Bunting with sudden emphasis. "I saw enough of doctors in my last place. Thirty-eight doctors in ten months did my poor missis have. Just determined on having ’em she was! Did they save her? No! She died just the same! Maybe a bit sooner."

"She was a freak, was your last mistress, Ellen," began Bunting aggressively.

Ellen had insisted on staying on in that place till her poor mistress died. They might have been married some months before they were married but for that fact. Bunting had always resented it.

His wife smile wanly. "We won’t have no words about that," she said, and again she spoke in a softer, kindlier tone than usual. "Daisy? If you won’t go