As she spoke he saw Maude detach herself from the group and approach them.

“Stafford—­forgive me, Lady Blanche! but will you let him come to Sir Stephen?  He has just heard news—­”

They followed her, and Sir Stephen seeing Stafford, held out his hand.  The old man was flushed and his dark eyes sparkled.

“Stafford!” he said, and his rich voice shook.  “I have just heard—­they have just brought me—­”

He held up an official-looking paper with the great red seal on the envelope.

“It is from the prime minister—­it is the peerage,” said Maude, in a voice thrilling with restrained triumph.

Stafford shook his father’s hand.

“I congratulate you, sir,” he said, trying all he knew to force congratulation, rejoicing, into his voice.

Sir Stephen nodded, and smiled; his lips were quivering.

“Congratulations, Sir Stephen!” said a man, coming up.  “I can see the good news in your face.”

“Not Sir Stephen—­Lord Highcliffe!” said another, correctingly.

Maude slid her arm in Stafford’s, and stood, her lovely face flushed, her eyes sparkling, as she looked round.

“And no title has been more honourably gained,” a voice said.

“Or will be more nobly borne!” echoed another.

Stafford, with all a man’s hatred of fuss, and embarrassment in its presence, drew nearer to his father.

“Won’t you come and sit down—­out of the crowd?” he added, in a low voice.

Sir Stephen nodded, and was moving away—­they made a kind of lane for him—­when a servant came up to him with a cablegram on a salver.  As he did so, Howard stepped forward quickly.

“Take it into the study!” he said, almost sharply, to the man; then to Stafford he whispered:  “Don’t let him open it.  It is bad news.  Griffenberg has just told me—­quick!  Take it!”

But before Stafford, in his surprise, could take the cablegram, Sir Stephen had got it.  He stood with his head erect, the electric light falling on his handsome face:  the embodiment of success.  He opened the telegram with the smile still on his lips, and read the thing; then the crowd of staring—­shall it be written, gaping?—­persons saw the smile fade slowly, the flushed face grow paler, still paler, then livid.  He looked up and round him as if he were searching for a face, and his eyes, full of anguish and terror, met Stafford’s.

“Stafford—­my boy!” he cried, in accents of despair.

Stafford sprang to him.

“Father—­I am here!” he said, for Sir Stephen’s gaze grew vacant as if he had been stricken blind.

The next moment he threw up his arms and, with a gasp, fell forward.  Stafford caught him as a cry of terror rose from the crowd which fell back as if suddenly awed by some dreadful presence; and forcing his way through it a famous doctor reached the father and son.

There was a moment of awful suspense, then—­the music sounded like a mockery in the silence—­all knew, though no word had been spoken, that the great Sir Stephen—­pardon! the Right Honourable the Earl of Highcliffe—­was dead.