Ralph placed his cup down again and felt his way into the conservatory. He stood in the doorway listening to the controversy going on beyond. "I don't fancy I shall like it," said Vera. "It will be too cold, too funereal." "My dear child," Marion cried, "then we will abandon the idea. Only don't forget that it was your own suggestion. You said it would look chaste." "Did I really! Then I had forgotten about it. And we are not going to abandon the idea. It shall not be said that I change my mind like a weathercock. The flowers on the dinner table to-night are all going to be white." 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. Then with the confidence of the mountain goat he made his way to the beach, the hard strip of beach that lay under the shadow of the castle. Here he fumbled for some time among the damp slippery rocks, feeling for something with infinite care and patience. His perseverance was rewarded at last. His hands lay on a mass of flowers, damp and sodden and yet comparatively fresh. He lifted one to his nostrils and sniffed it.