She laughed so merrily that he felt he hated her quite as much as he hated his nephew. Why, six months before, no one laughed in Stepney at all; and to think that any one should laugh at him, would have been an impossible dream.
"You laugh," he said gravely, "and yet you are on the brink of ruin. Where's your character? Wrapped up with the character of that young man. Where's your business! Drove away—by him. You laugh. Ah! I'm sorry for you, miss, because I thought at one time you were a plain-spoken, honest sort of young woman; if I'd ha' known that you meant to use my house—mine, the friend of all the respectable tradesmen—for such wicked fads as now disgrace it, I'd never ha' taken you for a tenant."
"Oh yes, you would, Mr. Bunker." She laughed again, but not merrily this time. "Oh yes—you would. You forget the fittings and the furniture, the rent paid in advance, and the half-crown an hour for advice. Is there anything, I should like to know, that you would not do for half a crown an hour?"
He made no reply.
"Why, again, do you hate your nephew? What injury have you done him that you should bear him such ill will?"
This, which was not altogether a shot in the dark, went straight to Mr. Bunker's heart. He said nothing, but put on his hat and rushed out. Clearly these two, between them, would drive him mad.
CHAPTER XXXIV. PROOFS IN PRINT.
"It is quite finished now," said Daniel Fagg, blotting the last page.