Lamps were brought. The disordered litter on the floor was swept up, the broken globes, the dainty china, the glass and silver. The white flowers were no longer there. This was a puzzle to everybody but Ralph, who had gathered them at the first distraction, and thrown them out of the window. There was silence for a minute or two after the servants had withdrawn. Then Rupert Ravenspur dashed his fist on the table in a passion of despair. "Great Heaven!" he said. "How long, how long? How much more of this is it possible to bear and still retain the powers of reason? What was it?" "Could it have been the flowers?" Vera suggested. "It was my fault." "No, no," Marion cried. "Why your fault? Those white blossoms were innocent enough; we packed them ourselves, we arranged them together." "Still, I believe it was the flowers," Geoffrey observed. "Why should they have fascinated us in that strange way? It was horrible!" Horrible indeed, and not the less so because the horrible was not conspicuous by its absence. That innocent flowers, pure white blossoms, could lend themselves to a dark mystery like this was almost maddening. And yet it must have been so, for no sooner had the flowers been removed and the air of heaven had entered the room than the grip and bitterness of death were past. "I am sure we were near the end," Marion cried. "Geoff, was it you who snatched the cloth from the table?" Geoffrey was about to deny the suggestion when his eyes fell upon Ralph's face. It was eager, almost pleading in its aspect. Like a flash the changing expression was gone. "It must have been mechanical," Geoffrey murmured. "One does those things and calls them impulses. Inspiration would be a better expression, I fancy." They crowded round him and gave him their thanks, all save Ralph, who sat drumming his fingers on the table as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Nothing seemed to draw him out of his environment. Still, it was another man who came creeping to Geoffrey's room when the lights were extinguished and the castle was wrapped in slumber. There was an inner room lying out over the sea, which Geoffrey used indifferently for a smoking room and study. "I can smoke my pipe here without a chance of our being overheard," he said. "Well, was the adventure this evening creepy enough for you?" Geoffrey shuddered slightly. Flagrant, rioting dangers would have had no terrors for him. It was the unseen that played on the nerves of imagination. "Horrible," he said, "but why this mystery?" "As far as I am concerned, you mean? My dear Geoffrey, it is imperative that I should be regarded by everybody as a poor blind worm who is incapable for good or evil. I want people to pity me, to make way for me, to treat me as if I were of no account, a needless cumberer of the ground. I want to see that you prevent these tragedies by sheer chance. I will strike when the time comes!"