The Lodger by Marie Belloc Lowndes

was
holding the paper close up to his eyes, and he read from it, in a
tone of considerable satisfaction:
      "'It is gratifying to be able to state that the
police at last believe they are in possession of a clue which will
lead to the arrest of the - '" and then Bunting dropped the paper
and rushed round the table.
      His wife, with a curious sighing moan, had slipped
down on to the floor, taking with her the tablecloth as she went.
She lay there in what appeared to be a dead faint. And Bunting,
scared out of his wits, opened the door and screamed out, "Daisy!
Daisy! Come up, child. Ellen's took bad again."
      And Daisy, hurrying in, showed an amount of sense
and resource which even at this anxious moment roused her fond
father's admiration.
      "Get a wet sponge, Dad - quick!" she cried, "a
sponge, - and, if you've got such a thing, a drop o' brandy. I'll
see after her!" And then, after he had got the little medicine
flask, "I can't think what's wrong with Ellen," said Daisy
wonderingly. "She seemed quite all right when I first came in. She
was listening, interested-like, to what I was telling her, and
then, suddenly - well, you saw how she was took, father? 'Taint
like Ellen this, is now?"
      "No," he whispered. "No, 'taint. But you see, child,
we've been going through a pretty bad time - worse nor I should
ever have let you know of, my dear. Ellen's just feeling it now -
that's what it is. She didn't say nothing, for Ellen's a good
plucked one, but it's told on her - it's told on her!"
      And then Mrs. Bunting, sitting up, slowly opened her
eyes, and instinctively put her hand up to her head to see if her
hair was all right.
      She hadn't really been quite "off." It would have
been better for her if she had. She had simply had an awful feeling
that she couldn't stand up - more, that she must fall down.
Bunting's words touched a most unwonted chord in the poor woman's
heart, and the eyes which she opened were full of tears. She had
not thought her husband knew how she had suffered during those
weeks of starving and waiting.
      But she had a morbid dislike of any betrayal of
sentiment. To her such betrayal betokened "foolishness," and so all
she said was, "There's no need to make a fuss! I only turned over a
little queer. I never was right off, Daisy."
      Pettishly she pushed away the glass in which Bunting
had hurriedly poured a little brandy. "I wouldn't touch such stuff
- no, not if I was dying!" she exclaimed.
      Putting out a languid hand, she pulled herself up,
with the help of the table, on to her feet. "Go down again to the
kitchen, child"; but there was a sob, a kind of tremor in her
voice.
      "You haven't been eating properly, Ellen - that's
what's the matter with you," said Bunting suddenly. "Now I come to
think of it, you haven't eat half enough these last two days. I
always did say - in old days many a time I telled you - that a
woman couldn't live on air. But there, you never believed me!"
      Daisy stood looking from one to the other, a shadow
over her bright, pretty face. "I'd no idea you'd had such a bad
time, father," she said feelingly. "Why didn't you let me know
about it? I might have got something out of Old Aunt."
      "We didn't want anything of that sort," said her
stepmother hastily. "But of course - well, I expect I'm still
feeling the worry now. I don't seem able to forget it. Those days
of waiting, of - of - " she restrained herself; another moment and
the word "starving" would have left her lips.
      "But everything's all right now," said Bunting
eagerly, all right, thanks to Mr. Sleuth, that is."
      "Yes," repeated his wife, in a low, strange tone of
voice. "Yes, we're all right now, and as you say, Bunting, it's all
along of Mr. Sleuth."
      She walked across to a chair and sat down on it.
"I'm just a little tottery still," she muttered.
      And Daisy, looking at her, turned to her father and
said in a whisper, but not so low but that Mrs. Bunting heard her,
"Don't