There was a pause, and then Enid Crofton spoke, in a low, uncertain tone.  “Believe me, Mrs. Piper, when I say that I really will do all I can for him.  But it’s not easy now to hear of good jobs, and Piper doesn’t seem easy to suit.”

“You wouldn’t care to take my ’usband on again yourself, Modam?”

Again there followed that curious pause which somehow filled Enid with a vague fear.

“I wish I could,” she said at last, “but I can’t afford it, Mrs. Piper.  As a matter of fact, I’ve done a foolish thing in coming here, to Beechfield, at all.  Only the other day one of my husband’s relations advised me to let the house.”

“Piper thinks, Modam, as how you might ’elp ’im to a job with Major Radmore.”  The name tripped quickly off the speaker’s tongue, as if she was quite used to the sound.

Enid felt a throb of dismay.  Did the Pipers know Godfrey Radmore was back?

“We was wondering,” said the woman, “if you would give us the major’s address?”

Then they didn’t know he was back—­or did they?

“I don’t know it.”

Enid Crofton was one of those women—­there are more than a truthful world suspects—­who actually find it easier to lie than to tell the truth.  But she saw the look of incredulity which flashed over the sallow face of her unwelcome visitor.

“Mr. Radmore,” she went on hastily, “is taking a motor tour.  But he’ll be back in London soon, and I’ll let you know the moment I know he’s settled down.”

“I should ’ave thought,” said the woman, “that the Major would ’ave ’ad a club where Piper could ’ave written.”

“If he has, I don’t know it.”

And then, all at once, Enid Crofton pulled herself together.  After all the interview was going quite smoothly.  Nothing—­well, disagreeable—­had been said.

She got up from her chair.  “I hope you’ll forgive me, Mrs. Piper, for saying that Piper will never keep any job if he behaves as he did with these last people—­I had a very disagreeable letter from the lady.”

Mrs. Piper, alias Madame Flora, grew darkly red.

“Piper ’ad a shock this last July,” she said, moving a little farther into the room, and so nearer to Enid Crofton.  “The thing’s been a-weighing on ’is mind for a long time.  It’s something ’e won’t exactly explain.  But it’s on ’is conscience.  Only yesterday ’e says to me, ’e says, ’If I’m drinking, my dear, it’s to drown care; I ought to have spoken up very differently to what I done at the poor Colonel’s inquest.”

The terrible little woman again took a step or two forward, and then she waited, as if she expected the lady to say something.  But Enid, though she opened her lips, found that she could not speak.  Hardly knowing what she was doing, she sat down again.  And, after what seemed to the owner of the attractive, candle-lit room an awful silence, Mrs. Piper went on, speaking now in quite a different tone—­easy, confidential, and with a touch of wheedling good nature in it.