The others had turned their eyes in the same direction. The very servants seemed to have lost all self-control, stood stricken, gasping, helpless. And no one even breathed as a shadowy figure came slowly shambling out of the dusk into the crimson light of the fire.
It halted, irresolute, a lean, stooping, bald-headed figure, with a haggard, foolish face contorted to hold a single eye-glass in place. On its forehead was a red smudge, as of iron-rust. It was wearing a disreputable, greasy blue uniform with not a few ragged rents in it. Its boots were equally shapeless and one was burst. There was snow on them.
Captain Dove was the first among the company to recover the power of speech.
"What the devil do you want here, Brasse!" he cried, in a choking voice, which yet was charged with relief as if from some paralysing fear.
But before the engineer could answer a word, Herries, the old factor, had risen shakily from his seat and shuffled across the floor toward him, was peering stupidly into his face, looking him up and down with eyes that were almost blind. The duchess had got up too. Slyne had sunk into his chair again, scowling blackly, pulling at his moustache. Lord Ingoldsby and Carthew and Mr. Jobling were still gazing blankly at the intruder. Sallie sat motionless, with one hand always at the stem of her wine-glass.
The duchess lifted the shade off one of the lights on the candelabra and looked still more searchingly at the engineer.
"Torquil St. Just!" she whispered at length, and "Lord St. Just!" cried Herries at the same moment.
The scarecrow with the eye-glass held out a slack hand to the old factor. "Hullo, Herries," he remarked, in a husky voice, "I didn't recognise you at first. You've aged a lot." And, glancing across at the duchess, "Isn't that Lady Jane Gairloch, Herries?" he asked in an audible aside. "She was only a slip of a girl, you know, old chap, when—I left home."
"She's the—Duchess—of Dawn, now,—my lord," answered Herries, the factor, helplessly. "And—you're Earl of Jura—now."