of the telephone conversation was that McGuire
made no mention of the shooting. "H-m," said Peter to himself as he hung
up, "going to ignore that trifling incident altogether, is he? Well,
we'll see about that. It doesn't pay to be too clever, old cock." His
pity for McGuire was no more. At the present moment Peter felt nothing
for him except an abiding contempt which could hardly be modified by any
subsequent revelations.

Peter ran down to the creek in his bath robe and took a quick plunge,
then returned, shaved and dressed while his coffee boiled, thinking with
a fresh mind over the events and problems of the night before. Curiously
enough, he found that he considered them more and more in their relation
to Beth. Perhaps it was his fear for her happiness that laid stress on
the probability that Jim Coast was Ben Cameron, Beth's father. How
otherwise could Mrs. Bergen's terror be accounted for? And yet why had
Coast been so perturbed at the mere mention of Ben Cameron's name? That
was really strange. For a moment the man had stared at Peter as though
he were seeing a ghost. If he _were_ Ben Cameron, why shouldn't he have
acknowledged the fact? Here was the weak point in the armor of mystery.
Peter had to admit that even while Coast was telling his story and the
conviction was growing in Peter's mind that this was Beth's father, the
very thought of Beth herself seemed to make the relationship grotesque.
This Jim Coast, this picturesque blackguard who had told tales on the
_Bermudian_ that had brought a flush of shame even to Peter's
cheeks--this degenerate, this scheming blackmailer--thief, perhaps
murderer, too, the father of Beth! Incredible! The merest contact with
such a man must defile, defame her. And yet if this were the fact, Coast
would have a father's right to claim her, to drag her down, a prey to
his vile tongue and drunken humors as she had once been when a child.
Her Aunt Tillie feared this. And Aunt Tillie did not know as Peter now
did of the existence of the vile secret that sealed Coast's lips and
held McGuire's soul in bondage.

Instead of going directly up the lawn to the house Peter went along the
edge of the woods to the garage and then up the path, as Coast must have
done a few nights before. The housekeeper was in the pantry and there
Peter sought her out. He noted the startled look in her eyes at the
moment he entered the room and then the line of resolution into which
her mouth was immediately