Marion paused in the act of cutting a lily.
"I don't fancy I would," she urged. "After all, second thoughts are best. White flowers on a table do suggest a funeral, that is if they are all white. And in an unfortunate house like this anything melancholy is to be discouraged. I think I will throw these blooms away——"
"You will do nothing of the kind," Vera cried. "White it shall be, and you and I shall arrange them in the best possible style. Why, you have enough already. Come along and we'll 'fix' up the table at once. Uncle Ralph, how you startled me."
"Did I?" Ralph said coolly. "I fancy it is my mission in life to startle people. What have you two been quarreling about?"
"We were not quarreling," Vera replied. "Marion insists that white flowers on a dinner-table are cold and chilly, not to say funereal. I say they are chaste and elegant. And, to prove that I am right, the table to-night will be decorated with white flowers."
"Not with my consent," Marion laughed. "I have set my face dead against the whole business. But spoilt Vera always gets her own way."
Vera smiled as she passed on with an armful of the nodding white flowers. Ralph passed slowly into the conservatory and closed the stained-glass door behind him.
Then he crossed the tiled floor rapidly as if his eyes were all that could be desired, and slipped up a glass panel at the far end of the conservatory. From this point there was a sheer fall down the cliffs on to a hard sandy beach below.
"Just the same," Ralph muttered. "Nothing altered. And just as easy."
He crossed the tiles again and passed into the great stone flagged hall in his slow way. Then he proceeded to light his pipe and strolled into the grounds. Past the terrace he went until he came to the cliffs where he was out of sight of the house.