"I'm afraid I can't help you, Mrs.——"
"Tillie Bergen. I've been housekeeper here since the new wing was put on——"
"Oh, yes," said Peter, pausing over the last cartridge as the thought came to him. "Then you must be Beth Cameron's aunt?"
"Beth?" The woman's sober face wreathed in a lovely smile. "D'ye know Beth?"
"Since this afternoon. She showed me the way."
"Oh. Poor Beth."
"Poor!"
"Oh, we're all poor, Mr. Nichols. But Beth she's—different from the rest of us somehow."
"Yes, she is different," admitted Peter frankly.
Mrs. Bergen sighed deeply. "Ye don't know how different. And now that—all this trouble has come, I can't get home nights to her. And she can't come to see me without permission. How long d'ye think it will last, sir?"