Hitherto Mrs. Bunting had been spared in any real sense a vision of The Avenger’s victims. Now they haunted her, and she wondered wearily if this fresh horror was to be added to the terrible fear which encompassed her night and day.
As she came within sight of home, her spirit suddenly lightened. The narrow, drab-coloured little house, flanked each side by others exactly like it in every single particular, save that their front yards were not so well kept, looked as if it could, aye, and would, keep any secret closely hidden.
For a moment, at any rate, The Avenger’s victims receded from her mind. She thought of them no more. All her thoughts were concentrated on Bunting—Bunting and Mr. Sleuth. She wondered what had happened during her absence—whether the lodger had rung his bell, and, if so, how he had got on with Bunting, and Bunting with him?
She walked up the little flagged path wearily, and yet with a pleasant feeling of home-coming. And then she saw that Bunting must have been watching for her behind the now closely drawn curtains, for before she could either knock or ring he had opened the door.
“I was getting quite anxious about you,” he exclaimed. “Come in, Ellen, quick! You must be fair perished a day like now—and you out so little as you are. Well? I hope you found the doctor all right?” He looked at her with affectionate anxiety.
And then there came a sudden, happy thought to Mrs. Bunting. “No,” she said slowly, “Doctor Evans wasn’t in. I waited, and waited, and waited, but he never came in at all. ’Twas my own fault,” she added quickly. Even at such a moment as this she told herself that though she had, in a sort of way, a kind of right to lie to her husband, she had no sight to slander the doctor who had been so kind to her years ago. “I ought to have sent him a card yesterday night,” she said. “Of course, I was a fool to go all that way, just on chance of finding a doctor in. It stands to reason they’ve got to go out to people at all times of day.”
“I hope they gave you a cup of tea?” he said.
And again she hesitated, debating a point with herself: if the doctor had a decent sort of servant, of course, she, Ellen Bunting, would have been offered a cup of tea, especially if she explained she’d known him a long time.
She compromised. “I was offered some,” she said, in a weak, tired voice. “But there, Bunting, I didn’t feel as if I wanted it. I’d be very grateful for a cup now—if you’d just make it for me over the ring.”
“’Course I will,” he said eagerly. “You just come in and sit down, my dear. Don’t trouble to take your things off now—wait till you’ve had tea.”