There was a roar of applause, a guzzling of wine, a crash of shivered glass, as the more reckless drinkers flung their empty glasses across their shoulders; and then above that medley of sounds, came silver clear the striking of the clock in the hall.
Midnight.
Lavendale counted the strokes, listening with breathless intensity, his hand inside his waistcoat pressed nervously against his heart.
The last stroke sounded, and he lived. The beating of his heart seemed to him calmer and more regular than it had been all day. He had no sense of faintness or failing strength—a keener life rather, a quicker circulation in all his veins, a sense of lightness and well-being, as of one who had cast off some heavy burden.
"Gentlemen," he said, "look at your watches and tell me—is that clock right?"
His friends pulled out their watches and consulted them with the most natural air in the world.
"Yes, your clock is right enough," said Bolingbroke.
"'Tis three minutes slow by my timekeeper," said Asterley: "I take it the new year is just three minutes old."
"Then 'twas an hallucination," cried Lavendale, "and I am a free man."
The revulsion of feeling overpowered him, and he broke into a half-hysterical sob; but Judith's hand upon his shoulder calmed him again, and he sat by her side as the fiddles and flutes in the hall struck up a joyous air, and the revellers left the table.