“I think,” he went on, “that the reason why your father insisted upon Lady Cynthia's and my presence there was that he meant it as a sort of allegory. Half the vices in life he claims are unreal.”
Margaret passed her arm through his and leaned a little towards him.
“If you knew just one thing I have never told you,” she confided, “I think that you would feel sorry for him. I do, more and more every day, because in a way that one thing is my fault.”
Notwithstanding the warm sunshine, she suddenly shivered. Francis took her hands in his. They were cold and lifeless.
“I know that one thing, dear,” he told her quietly.
She looked at him stonily. There was a questioning fear in her eyes.
“You know—”
“I know that your father killed Oliver Hilditch.”
She suddenly broke out into a stream of words. There was passion in her tone and in her eyes. She was almost the accuser.
“My father was right, then!” she exclaimed. “He told me this morning that he believed that it was to you or to your friend at Scotland Yard that Walter had told his story. But you don't know you don't know how terrible the temptation was how—you see I say it quite coolly—how Oliver Hilditch deserved to die. He was trusted by my father in South America and he deceived him, he forged the letters which induced me to marry him. It was part of his scheme of revenge. This was the first time we had any of us met since. I told my father the truth that afternoon. He knew for the first time how my marriage came about. My husband had prayed me to keep silent. I refused. Then he became like a devil. We were there, we three, that night after you left, and Francis, as I live, if my father had not killed him, I should have!”