Also she was listening, following in imagination her lodger's quick, singularly quiet progress-- "stealthy" she called it to herself--through the fog-filled, lamp-lit hall.

Yes, now he was going up the staircase.

What was that Bunting was saying?
"It isn't safe for decent folk to be out in such weather--no, that it ain't, not unless they have something to do that won't wait till to-morrow." The speaker was looking straight into his wife's narrow, colourless face.

Bunting was an obstinate man, and liked to prove himself right.

"I've a good mind to speak to him about it, that I have! He ought to be told that it isn't safe--not for the sort of man he is--to be wandering about the streets at night.