pose he'll be long before he comes home," said Bunting
heavily, and he cast an anxious, furtive look at his wife. She
looked as if stricken in a vital part; he saw from her face that
there was something wrong--very wrong indeed.

The hours dragged on. All three felt moody and ill at ease. Daisy
knew there was no chance that young Chandler would come in to-day.

About six o'clock Mrs. Bunting went upstairs. She lit the gas in
Mr. Sleuth's sitting-room and looked about her with a fearful glance.
Somehow everything seemed to speak to her of the lodger, there lay
her Bible and his Concordance, side by side on the table, exactly
as he had left them, when he had come downstairs and suggested that
ill-starred expedition to his landlord's daughter. She took a few
steps forward, listening the while anxiously for the familiar sound
of the click in the door which would tell her that the lodger had
come back, and then she went over to the window and looked out.

What a cold night for a man to be wandering about, homeless,
friendless, and, as she suspected with a pang, with but very little
money on him!

Turning abruptly, she went into the lodger's bedroom and opened the
drawer of the looking-glass.

Yes, there lay the much-diminished heap of sovereigns. If only he
had taken his money out with him! She wondered painfully whether he
had enough on his person to secure a good night's lodging, and then
suddenly she remembered that which brought relief to her mind. The
lodger had given something to that Hopkins fellow--either a sovereign
or half a sovereign, she wasn't sure which.

The memory of Mr. Sleuth's cruel words to her, of his threat, did
not disturb her overmuch. It had been a mistake--all a mistake.
Far from betraying Mr. Sleuth, she had sheltered him--kept his awful
secret as she could not have kept it had she known, or even dimly
suspected, the horrible fact with which Sir John Burney's words had
made her acquainted; namely, that Mr. Sleuth was victim of no
temporary aberration, but that he was, and had been for years, a
madman, a homicidal maniac.

In her ears there still rang the Frenchman's half careless yet
confident question, "De Leipsic and Liverpool man?"

Following a sudden impulse, she went back into the sitting-room,
and taking a black-headed pin out of her bodice stuck it amid the
leaves of the Bible. Then she opened the Book, and looked at the
page the pin had marked:--

"My tabernacle is spoiled and a