At that moment the sun, which had been filling the room with radiance, had become obscured by a floating cloud. The place was informed by a momentary greyness. It was only early spring, after all, and summer with its perpetual radiance, its perpetual heat, its air of summer, which will always make a room cheerful even when a thunderstorm approaches, had not yet arrived.
The room became as grey as the faces of the people who were in it, as grey and cold as the accusing voice which could not be silenced, which continued remorselessly. "But you all stayed here last night," Admaston repeated slowly, clearly, and with a definite, staccato voice.
Then there was an odd chiming of tone. The anxious musical contralto of Lady Attwill mingled with the more anxious, and definitely tremulous, bleat of the diplomatist.
"Oh yes. We were all here," they said together.
"But no supper?"
"No supper, George," Ellerdine said in a faint voice....
The door opened and Jacques of Ecclefechan entered.
He looked towards Lord Ellerdine. "Your man, my lord, to see you," he said in excellent Scotch-English.
A little wizened, elderly man with grey hair closely cropped to his head, and dressed in a decorous lounge suit of black, came drooping into the room.
His face was anxious, and at the same time pleased.