The two Sicilians raised their glasses and bowed expectantly to the little company. They received, however, a much greater tribute to their performance than the applause which they had been expecting. There reigned everywhere a deadly, stupefied silence. Only a half-stifled sob broke from Lady Cynthia's lips as she leaned over the rail, her face buried in her hands, her whole frame shaking. CHAPTER XXXVI Francis and Margaret sat in the rose garden on the following morning. Their conversation was a little disjointed, as the conversation of lovers in a secluded and beautiful spot should be, but they came back often to the subject of Sir Timothy. “If I have misunderstood your father,” Francis, declared, “and I admit that I have, it has been to some extent his own fault. To me he was always the deliberate scoffer against any code of morals, a rebel against the law even if not a criminal in actual deeds. I honestly believed that The Walled House was the scene of disreputable orgies, that your father was behind Fairfax in that cold-blooded murder, and that he was responsible in some sinister way for the disappearance of Reggie Wilmore. Most of these things seem to have been shams, like the fight last night.” She moved uneasily in her place. “I am glad I did not see that,” she said, with a shiver. “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.