w 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.

CHAPTER XXXII.

By a stroke, as of Heaven's lightning, the house of joy was turned into
the house of mourning.

They bore the dead man to his room, plain and simple, even in that
mansion of luxury; the guests departed, some of them flying as from a
pestilence, some of them lingering with white and dazed faces and
hushed whispers, and Stafford was left alone with his dead; for he had
shut the door even upon Howard, who paced up and down outside, not
daring to force his sympathy upon his beloved friend.

The morning papers gave a full account of the grand ball, the
announcement of Sir Stephen's peerage, and the sudden and tragic ending
to a life which had been lived full in the public gaze, a life of
struggle and success, which had been cut down at the very moment of
extreme victory. They recited the man's marvellous career, and held it
up to the admiration and emulation of his fellow Englishmen. They
called him a pioneer, one who had added to the Empire, they hinted at a
public funeral--and they all discreetly ascribed telling upon a weak
heart. Sir Stephen's precarious condition had been known, they said, to
his medical adviser, who had for some time past tried to persuade him
to relinquish his arduous and nerve-racking occupations, and to take
repose.

Not a word was said about the cablegram which had been delivered to him
a few moments before his terribly sudden death; for it was felt by all
that nothing should be allowed to blur the glory of such a successful
career--not for the present, at any rate.

There was no need for an inquest; the great physician who had been in
attendanc