midnight
Here were old and dignified noblemen , more than one of whom wore threadbare coats and other signs of actual poverty ; and here were young spirits aflame with the hope of action . Here a lot of antiquated baronet-squires flock together , and yonder stands a knot of grizzled colonels with the professional air of men awaiting orders . Here is the old Duke of Bayswater , listening through his eyeglasses , while Geoffrey Ripon and Featherstone have a quiet jest with Mr. Sydney . Shortly after midnight -- at about the same moment that Mrs. Oswald Carey received the bank-notes from Mr. Bugbee -- the hum of conversation ceased in this meeting of the Royalists , and all eyes were turned toward a table in the centre of the long drawing-room , where stood John Dacre , who had just entered the room , his hands filled with papers . Dacre was in the uniform of a staff officer , and on his breast he wore the battle-cross he had won in his first campaign , and also some gaudier honors awarded him for loyalty and devotion to the cause of the King . The strong light of the chandelier showed the tense lines of his finely-cut face , which was white with excitement , and his eyes burned beneath his brows with a flame too strong to be subdued by any outer light . Before he had uttered a word he had in some way imparted to many of those around him something of his own exaltation and intensity of spirit .