if he had walked over-quickly
through the moist, foggy air.

"Why, Joe?" said Mrs. Bunting wonderingly. "Come in--do! Bunting's
out, but he won't be very long now. You've been quite a stranger
these last few days."

"Well, you know why, Mrs. Bunting--"

She stared at him for a moment, wondering what he could mean. Then,
suddenly she remembered. Why, of course, Joe was on a big job just
now--the job of trying to catch The Avenger! Her husband had
alluded to the fact again and again when reading out to her little
bits from the halfpenny evening paper he was taking again.

She led the way to the sitting-room. It was a good thing Bunting
had insisted on lighting the fire before he went out, for now the
room was nice and warm--and it was just horrible outside. She had
felt a chill go right through her as she had stood, even for that
second, at the front door.

And she hadn't been alone to feel it, for, "I say, it is jolly to
be in here, out of that awful cold!" exclaimed Chandler, sitting
down heavily in Bunting's easy chair.

And then Mrs. Bunting bethought herself that the young man was tired,
as well as cold. He was pale, almost pallid under his usual healthy,
tanned complexion--the complexion of the man who lives much out of
doors.

"Wouldn't you like me just to make you a cup of tea?" she said
solicitously.

"Well, to tell truth, I should be right down thankful for one, Mrs.
Bunting!" Then he looked round, and again he said her name, "Mrs.
Bunting--?"

He spoke in so odd, so thick a tone that she turned quickly. "Yes,
what is it, Joe?" she asked. And then, in sudden terror, "You've
never come to tell me that anything's happened to Bunting? He's
not had an accident?"

"Goodness, no! Whatever made you think that? But--but, Mrs.
Bunting, there's been another of them!"

His voice dropped almost to a whisper. He was staring at her with
unhappy, it seemed to her terror-filled, eyes.

"Another of them?" She looked at him, bewildered--at a loss.
And then what he meant flashed across her--"another of them"
meant another of these strange, mysterious, awful murders.

But her relief for the moment was so great--for she really had
thought for a second that he had come to give her ill news of
Bunting--that the feeling that she did experience on hearing
this piece of news was actually pleasurable, though she would
have been much shocked had that fact been brought to her notice.

Almost in spite of herself, Mrs. B