Lyttelton smiled faintly. "No, it was not of that I was thinking," he answered. "Those are things of yesterday. Hillsborough was wrong; the majority who voted with him were wrong; and I was right with my minority. They don't know Ireland as I do. But a Government which can lose America can do anything. I have done with politics. I was thinking of something entirely different when you came upon me. I was thinking—of death."
Fortescue laughed. But, when he had heard the story of Lyttelton's dream, something in the manner of the narrator conveyed to him a feeling of uneasiness.
"No man has more thoroughly enjoyed doing wrong than I have," continued Lyttelton. "But I should not have enjoyed it so much if I believed in nothing. With me sin has been conscientious; and I enjoyed the wrong thing not only for itself but also because it was wrong. Suppose it be true that I have not more than three days to live—"
"You take the thing too seriously," interposed his cousin.
"Join me at Pit Place to-morrow," said Lyttelton. "Then you shall see if I take it too seriously."
During the intervening two days he fluctuated between profound gloom and boisterous hilarity. One hour he was plunged into the depths of despair, the next he was the soul of gaiety, laughing hysterically at his fears, and exclaiming, "I shall cheat the lady yet!"
During dinner on the third and fatal day he was the maddest and merriest at the table, convulsing all by his sallies of wit and his infectious high spirits; and, when the cloth was removed, he exclaimed jubilantly, "Ah, Richard is himself again!" But his gaiety was short-lived. As the hours wore on his spirits deserted him; he lapsed into gloom and silence, from which all the efforts of his friends could not rouse him.
As the night advanced he began to grow restless. He could not sit still, but paced to and fro, with terror-haunted eyes, muttering incoherently to himself, and taking out his watch every few moments to note the passage of time. At last, when his watch pointed to half-past eleven, he retired, without a word of farewell to his guests, to his bedroom, not knowing that not only his own watch, but every clock and watch in the house had been put forward half-an-hour by his anxious friends, "to deceive him into comfort."
Having undressed and gone to bed, he ordered his valet to draw the curtains at the foot, as if to screen him from a second sight of the mysterious lady, and, sitting up in bed, watch in hand, he awaited the fatal hour of midnight. As the minute hand slowly but surely drew near to twelve he asked to see his valet's watch, and was relieved to find that it marked the same time as his own. With beating heart and straining eyes he watched the hand draw nearer and nearer. A minute more to go—half a minute. Now it pointed to the fateful twelve—and nothing happened. It crept slowly past. The crisis was over. He put down the watch with a deep sigh of relief, and then broke into a peal of laughter—discordant, jubilant, defiant.
"This mysterious lady is not a true prophetess, I find," he said to his valet, after spending a few minutes in further mirthful waiting. "And now give me my medicine; I will wait no longer." The valet proceeded to mix his usual medicine, a dose of rhubarb, stirring it, as no spoon was at hand, with a tooth-brush lying on the table. "You dirty fellow!" his lordship exclaimed. "Go down and fetch a spoon."