past in
front of his wife.

After all, Daisy was his child; Ellen couldn't know how he was
feeling.

He seemed to take the path in one leap, then fumbled for a moment
with his latchkey.

Opening wide the door, "Daisy!" he called out, in a wailing voice,
"Daisy, my dear! where are you?"

"Here I am, father. What is it?"

"She's all right." Bunting turned a grey face to his wife. "She's
all right, Ellen."

He waited a moment, leaning against the wall of the passage. "It
did give me a turn," he said, and then, warningly, "Don't frighten
the girl, Ellen."

Daisy was standing before the fire in their sitting room, admiring
herself in the glass.

"Oh, father," she exclaimed, without turning round, "I've seen the
lodger! He's quite a nice gentleman, though, to be sure, he does
look a cure. He rang his bell, but I didn't like to go up; and so
he came down to ask Ellen for something. We had quite a nice
little chat--that we had. I told him it was my birthday, and he
asked me and Ellen to go to Madame Tussaud's with him this
afternoon." She laughed, a little self-consciously. "Of course,
I could see he was 'centric, and then at first he spoke so funnily.
'And who be you?' he says, threatening-like. And I says to him,
'I'm Mr. Bunting's daughter, sir.' 'Then you're a very fortunate
girl'--that's what he says, Ellen--'to 'ave such a nice
stepmother as you've got. That's why,' he says, 'you look such
a good, innocent girl.' And then he quoted a bit of the Prayer
Book. 'Keep innocency,' he says, wagging his head at me. Lor'!
It made me feel as if I was with Old Aunt again."

"I won't have you going out with the lodger--that's flat."

Bunting spoke in a muffled, angry tone. He was wiping his forehead
with one hand, while with the other he mechanically squeezed the
little packet of tobacco, for which, as he now remembered, he had
forgotten to pay.

Daisy pouted. "Oh, father, I think you might let me have a treat
on my birthday! I told him that Saturday wasn't a very good day--
at least, so I'd heard--for Madame Tussaud's. Then he said we
could go early, while the fine folk are still having their dinners."
She turned to her stepmother, then giggled happily. "He particularly
said you was to come, too. The lodger has a wonderful fancy for you,
Ellen; if I was father, I'd feel quite jealous!"

Her last words were cut across by a tap-tap on the door.

Bunting and his wife looked at each other apprehensively. Was it
pos