At noon the following day there was a large meeting at Gloucester
House. There gathered the Beltons, Baron Wirsch, Griffenberg, and the
titled and untitled folk who had been concerned in Sir Stephen Orme's
big scheme. And they were all gloomy and in a bad temper; for all of
them had lost money and some of them were well-nigh ruined by the
collapse of the company which was to have made their fortunes. They
came before noon, the appointed hour, and talked, sometimes in
undertones, but not seldom in loud and complaining voices. By one and
all the dead man was blamed for the ruin in which he had involved them.
They had left the whole thing in his hands: he ought to have foreseen,
ought to have taken proper precautions. They had been--well, if not
duped and deceived, the victims of his criminal sanguineness and
carelessness.

Griffenberg, being one of the heaviest losers, was elected to the
chair, but beyond making a statement which told them nothing, he could
do little. When he informed them that Lord Highcliffe had died
practically insolvent, a murmur arose, a deep guttural murmur which was
something between a hiss and a groan, and it was while this unpleasant
sound was filling the room that Stafford entered.

The groan, if groan it can be called, died away, and they all turned
and looked at his pale and careworn face. The tall figure in its deep
mourning dress silenced them for the moment.