For one bewildered moment, Mrs. Bindle stared at him, in her eyes a look in which surprise and fear seemed to strive for mastery. Her gaze wandered on to the frightened girl clutching her father round the neck, and then back to Bindle. She turned as suddenly as she had entered, cannoned off Mrs. Brunger, who stood behind her, and stumbled blindly along the passage out into the street.
Mrs. Brunger followed, and closed the front-door behind her. When she returned to the kitchen, Bindle had picked up his chair and resumed his seat. His hands were trembling slightly, and he was very white.
"She--she ain't been well lately," he muttered huskily. "I----"
"Now, mother, where's the beer? I'm feeling a bit thirsty;" and after this unusually lengthy speech, Mr. Brunger proceeded to shuffle the dominoes with an almost alarming vigour, whilst Elsie, wonder-eyed and a little pale, sat on the arm of her father's chair glancing covertly at Bindle.
That night, when he returned home, Bindle found laid out on the kitchen table, a bottle of beer, a glass, two pieces of bread and butter, a piece of cheese and a small dish of pickled onions.
"Well, I'm blowed!" he muttered, at the sight of this unusual attention.
"Wonders'll never cease," and he proceeded to unscrew the stopper of the beer-bottle.
The incident of the Brungers was never subsequently referred to between them; but Mrs. Bindle gave herself no rest until she had unmasked the cause of all the trouble.
Mrs. Stitchley was persuaded to see the reason why she should withdraw from the Alton Road Chapel Temperance Society, the reason being a half-quartern bottle of gin, from which she was caught imbibing at a magic-lantern entertainment,--and it was Mrs. Bindle who caught her.
THE END.