untouched
--she took the paper up again. She turned over the big sheets,
until she found, at the foot of one of the ten columns devoted to
The Avenger and his crimes, the information she wanted, and then
uttered an exclamation under her breath.

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 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 bad--not even when they had been
half starving, and dreadfully, dreadfully worked.

"Yes," she said briefly, "I've a pain in my head, at the back of
my neck. It doesn't often leave me; it gets worse when anything
upsets me, like I was upset last night by Joe Chandler."

"He was a silly ass to come and do a thing like that!" said Bunting
crossly. "I'd a good mind to tell him so, too. But I must say,
Ellen, I wonder he took you in--he didn't me!"

"Well, you had no chance he should--you knew who it was," she said
slowly.

And Bunting remained silent, for Ellen was right. Joe Chandler had
already spoken when he, Bunting, came out into the hall, and saw
their cleverly disguised visitor.

"Those big black moustaches," he went on com