She longed for Bunting to return, and yet in a way she was relieved by his absence. She would have liked to feel him near by, and yet she welcomed anything that took her husband out of the house.
And as Mrs. Bunting swept and dusted, trying to put her whole mind into what she was doing, she was asking herself all the time what was going on upstairs.
What a good rest the lodger was having! But there, that was only natural. Mr. Sleuth, as she well knew, had been up a long time last night, or rather this morning.
Suddenly, the drawing-room bell rang. But Mr. Sleuth’s landlady did not go up, as she generally did, before getting ready the simple meal which was the lodger’s luncheon and breakfast combined. Instead, she went downstairs again and hurriedly prepared the lodger’s food.
Then, very slowly, with her heart beating queerly, she walked up, and just outside the sitting-room—for she felt sure that Mr. Sleuth had got up, that he was there already, waiting for her—she rested the tray on the top of the banisters and listened. For a few moments she heard nothing; then through the door came the high, quavering voice with which she had become so familiar:
“ ‘She saith to him, stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant. But he knoweth not that the dead are there, and that her guests are in the depths of hell.’ ”
There was a long pause. Mrs. Bunting could hear the leaves of her Bible being turned over, eagerly, busily; and then again Mr. Sleuth broke out, this time in a softer voice:
“ ‘She hath cast down many wounded from her; yea, many strong men have been slain by her.’ ” And in a softer, lower, plaintive tone came the words: “ ‘I applied my heart to know, and to search, and to seek out wisdom and the reason of things; and to know the wickedness of folly, even of foolishness and madness.’ ”
And as she stood there listening, a feeling of keen distress, of spiritual oppression, came over Mrs. Bunting. For the first time in her life she visioned the infinite mystery, the sadness and strangeness, of human life.
Poor Mr. Sleuth—poor unhappy, distraught Mr. Sleuth! An overwhelming pity blotted out for a moment the fear, aye, and the loathing, she had been feeling for her lodger.
She knocked at the door, and then she took up her tray.
“Come in, Mrs. Bunting.” Mr. Sleuth’s voice sounded feebler, more toneless than usual.
She turned the handle of the door and walked in. The lodger was not sitting in his usual place; he had taken the little round table on which his candle generally rested when he read in bed, out of his bedroom, and placed it over by the drawing-room window. On it were placed, open, the Bible and the Concordance. But as his landlady came in, Mr. Sleuth hastily closed the Bible, and began staring dreamily out of the window, down at the sordid, hurrying crowd of men and women which now swept along the Marylebone Road.
“There seem a great many people out today,” he observed, without looking round.
“Yes, sir, there do.”
Mrs. Bunting began busying herself with laying the cloth and putting out the breakfast-lunch, and as she did so she was seized with a mortal, instinctive terror of the man sitting there.
At last Mr. Sleuth got up and turned round. She forced herself to look at him. How tired, how worn, he looked, and—how strange!
Walking towards the table on which lay his meal, he rubbed his hands together with a nervous gesture—it was a gesture he only made when something had pleased, nay, satisfied him. Mrs. Bunting, looking at him, remembered that he had rubbed his hands together thus when he had first seen the room upstairs, and realised that it contained a large gas-stove and a convenient sink.
What Mr. Sleuth was doing now also reminded her in an odd way of a play she had once seen—a play to which a young man had taken her when she was a girl, unnumbered years ago, and which had thrilled and fascinated her. “Out, out, damned spot!” that was what the tall, fierce, beautiful lady who had played the part of a queen had said, twisting her hands together just as the lodger was doing now.
“It’s a fine day,” said Mr. Sleuth, sitting down and unfolding his napkin. “The fog has cleared. I do not know if you will agree with me, Mrs. Bunting, but I always feel brighter when the sun is shining, as it is now, at any rate, trying to shine.” He looked at her inquiringly, but Mrs. Bunting could not speak. She only nodded. However, that did not affect Mr. Sleuth adversely.
He had acquired a great liking and respect for this well-balanced, taciturn woman. She was the first woman for whom he had experienced any such feeling for many years past.
He looked down at the still covered dish, and shook his head. “I don’t feel as if I could eat very much today,” he said plaintively. And then he suddenly took a half-sovereign out of his waistcoat pocket.
Already Mrs. Bunting had noticed that it was not the same waistcoat Mr. Sleuth had been wearing the day before.
“Mrs. Bunting, may I ask you to come here?”
And after a moment of hesitation his landlady obeyed him.
“Will you please accept this little gift for the use you kindly allowed me to make of your kitchen last night?” he said quietly. “I tried to make as little mess as I could, Mrs. Bunting, but—well, the truth is I was carrying out a very elaborate experiment.”
Mrs. Bunting held out her hand, she hesitated, and then she took the coin. The fingers which for a moment brushed lightly against her palm were icy cold—cold and clammy. Mr. Sleuth was evidently not well.
As she walked down the stairs, the
