"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.