The woman raised her haggard face to his.
"Beth's friend! Are ye? Then ask me no more."
"But I've got to know. I'm here to protect Mr. McGuire, but I'd like to protect you too. Who is this stranger?"
The woman lowered her head and then shook it violently. "No, no. I'll not tell."
He frowned down at her head.
"Did you know that to-night McGuire saw the stranger—the man that you saw—and that he's even more frightened than you?"
The woman raised her head, gazed at him helplessly, then lowered it again, but she did not speak. The kitchen was silent, but an obbligato to this drama, like the bray of the ass in the overture to "Midsummer Night's Dream," came from the drawing-room, where Freddy Mordaunt was now singing a sentimental ballad.
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Bergen, but if Mr. McGuire is in danger to-night, I've got to know it."
"To-night!" she gasped, as though clutching at a straw. "Not to-night. Nothin'll happen to-night. I'm sure of that, Mr. Nichols."