"Yes," said Mr. Wordley; "poor man, he died suddenly, quite suddenly,
in the middle of a grand ball; died of the shock."
"Shock?" she echoed.
He looked at her as if he found it hard to realise her ignorance.
"Yes; the shock of the bad news. Dear me! it seems so strange that you,
a neighbour, so to speak, should not have heard the story of which all
London--one might almost say all England--was talking. Sir Stephen was
a great financier, and had just brought out a great company to work an
important concession in Africa. He was supposed to have made an
enormous sum of money by it; indeed, must have done so; but at the very
moment of his success there came a stroke of bad luck; and the news of
it was brought to him on the night of the ball he was giving in his
splendid town house. The sudden reverse meant absolute ruin, and he
fell dead with the cablegram in his hand. Shocking, was it not?"
Ida's lips moved, but she could not speak. The whole scene seemed to
rise before her; but, naturally enough, her thoughts were concentrated
upon one figure in it, that of Stafford.
"Then--then Mr. Stafford Orme is now the baronet, Sir Stafford?" she
said in a scarcely audible voice. "No; he is now Lord Highcliffe. His
father was raised to the peerage on the day he died--one night almost
say the hour he died. That makes it the more unfortunate."
"Unfortunate? I do not understand. You say he is a peer?"
"Yes; but a penniless peer; and I can't imagine a more unpleasant and
miserable position than his. His father died absolutely ruined; indeed,
insolvent; though I suppose by his son's act of noble self-sacrifice a
great many of the debts were paid."
"Tell me--I do not know," said Ida, as steadily as she could.
"Sir Stephen settled a very large sum of money upon the young man; but
he refused to take advantage of it, and made over the whole sum, every
penny of it, to the creditors; and left himself, I am told, absolutely
penniless. Not that it mattered very much; because he is engaged to a
Miss Falconer, who father is, I believe, a millionaire."
The colour rose to Ida's face, the hand which held the screen shook.
"And they--they are going to be married soon?" asked she.
"I don't know, I suppose not," replied Mr. Wordley, as he bent over his
memoranda again; "Lord Highcliffe has disappeared, left England. No one
seems to quite know where he has gone. It was a terrible collapse, and
a tragic end, the great Sir Stephen's; but men of his trade always have
to run such risks. By the way, I suppose the Villa will have to be
sold."