Mr. Brunger had only one evening a week at home, and this he liked to divide between his family and his favourite game, giving the major part of his attention to the game.

At one time he had been in the habit of asking in some friend or acquaintance to join him; but, since the arrival of Bindle, it had become an understood thing that the same quartette should meet each Sat.u.r.day evening.

Mrs. Brunger would make a pretence of crocheting. The product possessed one thing in common with the weaving of Penelope, in that it never seemed to make any appreciable progress towards completion.

Mr. Brunger devoted himself to the rigours of the game, and Elsie would flutter between the two players, bursting, but never daring, to give the advice that her superior knowledge made valuable.

Bindle kept the party amused, that is, except Mr. Brunger, who was too wrapped up in the bone parallelograms before him to be conscious of anything else.

Elsie would as soon have thought of missing her Sunday dinner as those Sat.u.r.day evenings, and Mrs. Brunger soon found that a new and powerful weapon had been thrust into her hand.

"Very well, you go to bed at seven on Sat.u.r.day," she would say, which was inevitably followed by an "Oh, mums!" of contrition and docility.

"Out! You're beaten, uncle," cried Elsie, clapping her hands, and enjoying the look of mock mortification with which Bindle regarded the dominoes before him.

Mr. Brunger leaned back in his chair, an expression of mild triumph modifying his heavily-jowled countenance. It was remarkable how consistently Mr. Brunger was victor.

At that moment a loud and peremptory rat-tat-tat sounded down the pa.s.sage.

"Now, I wonder who that is." Mrs. Brunger put down her crochet upon the table and rose.

"Don't you bring anyone in here, mother," ordered Mr. Brunger, fearful that his evening was to be spoiled, as he began to mix the dominoes.

There was no music so dear to his soul as their click-clack, as they brushed shoulders with one another.

Mrs. Brunger left the room and, carefully closing the door behind her, pa.s.sed along the short pa.s.sage and opened the door.

"I've come for my husband!"

On the doorstep stood Mrs. Bindle, grim as Fate. Her face was white, her eyes hard, and her mouth little more than indicated by a line of shadow between her closely pressed lips. The words seemed to strike Mrs.

Brunger dumb.

"Your--your husband?" she repeated at length.

"Yes, my 'usband." Mrs. Bindle's diction was losing its purity and precision under the stress of great emotion. "I know 'e's here. Don't you deny it. I saw 'im come. Oh, you wicked woman!"

Mrs. Brunger blinked in her bewilderment. She was taken by surprise at the suddenness of the a.s.sault; but her temper was rising under this insulting and unprovoked attack.

"What's that you call me?" she demanded.

"Taking a woman's lawful wedded 'usband----" began Mrs. Bindle, when she was interrupted by Mrs. Brunger.

"Here, come in," she cried, mindful that inside the house only those on either side could hear, whereas on the doorstep their conversation would be the property of the whole street.

Mrs. Bindle followed Mrs. Brunger into the parlour. For a moment the two women were silent, whilst Mrs. Brunger found the matches, lighted the gas, and lowered the blind.

"Now, what's the matter with you? What's your trouble?" demanded Mrs.

Brunger, with suppressed pa.s.sion. "Out with it."

"I want my 'usband," repeated Mrs. Bindle, a little taken aback by the fierceness of the onslaught.

"An' what have I got to do with your husband, I should like to know?"

"He's here. You're encouraging him, leading him away from----" Mrs.

Bindle paused.

"Leadin' him away from what?" demanded Mrs. Brunger.

"From me!"

"Leadin' him away, am I?--leadin' him away, I think you said?" Mrs.

Brunger placed a hand on either hip and thrust her face forward, causing Mrs. Bindle involuntarily to start back.

"Oh! you needn't be afraid. I'm not goin' to hit you. Leadin' him away was what you said." Mrs. Brunger paused dramatically, and leaned back slightly, as if to get a more comprehensive view of her antagonist.

"Well, he must be a pretty d.a.m.n short-sighted fool to want leadin' away from a thing like you. I'd run h.e.l.l-hard if I was him."

The biting scorn of the words, the insultingly contemptuous tone in which they were uttered, for a moment seemed to daze Mrs. Bindle; but only for a breathing s.p.a.ce.

Making a swift recovery, she turned upon her antagonist a stream of accusation and reproach.

She told how a fellow-worshipper at the Alton Road Chapel had witnessed the return of Bindle the night of the altercation in the front garden.

She accused mother and daughter of unthinkable crimes, bringing Scriptural quotation to her aid.

She confused Fulham and Hammersmith with Sodom and Gomorrah. She called upon an all-seeing Providence to purge the district in general, and Arloes Road in particular, of its pestilential populace.

She traced the descent of Mrs. Brunger down generations of infamy and sin. She threatened her with punishment in this world and the next. She told of Bindle's neglect and wickedness, and cast him out into the tooth-gnashing darkness. She trampled him under foot, arranged that Providence should spurn him and his a.s.sociates, and consign them all to eternal and fiery d.a.m.nation.

Gradually she worked herself up into a frenzy of hysterical invective.

Little points of foam formed at the corners of her mouth. Her bonnet had slipped off backwards, and hung by its strings round her neck. Her right-hand glove of biscuit brown had split across the palm.

Mrs. Bindle had lost all control of herself.

"He's here! He's here! I saw him come! You Jezebel! You're hiding him; but I'll find him. I'll find him. You--you----"

With a wild, hysterical scream, she darted to the door, tore it open, dashed along the pa.s.sage, and burst into the kitchen.

"So I've caught you with the Jez----" She stopped as if petrified.

Mr. Brunger had just played his last domino, and was sitting back in his chair in triumph. Elsie, one arm round her father's neck, was laughing derisively at Bindle, who sat gazing with comical concern at five dominoes standing on their sides facing him.

All three heads jerked round, and three pairs of widened eyes gazed at the dishevelled, white-faced figure, standing looking down at them with the light of madness in its eyes.

"Oo-er!" gasped Elsie, as her arms tightened round her father's neck, almost strangling him.

"Grrrrmp," choked Mr. Brunger, dropping his pipe on to his knees.

Bindle started up, overturning his chair in the movement. His eyes were blazing, his lips were set in a firm line, and his hands were clenched convulsively at his sides.

"You--you get out of 'ere!" the words seemed to burst from him involuntarily, "or----"