hat 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."

When the servant returned a few minutes later he found, to his horror,
his master lying back on the pillow, unconscious and breathing heavily.
He ran downstairs again, shouting, "Help! Help! My lord is dying!" The
alarmed guests rushed frantically to the chamber, only to find their
host almost at his last gasp. A few moments later he was dead, with the
watch still clutched in his hand, pointing to half-past twelve. He had
died at the very stroke of midnight, as foretold by his ghostly visitant
of three nights previously.

Thus strangely and dramatically died Thomas, second Lord Lyttelton,
statesman, wit, and debauchee, precisely as he had been warned that he
would die in a dream or vision of the night. How far his death was due
to natural causes, to the effect of fear on a diseased heart, none can
say with certainty. That his heart was diseased, that he had had many
former seizures, during which his life seemed in danger, is beyond
question; but if it was merely coincidence, it was surely the most
remarkable coincidence on record, that his death should come at the
exact moment foretold by the lady of his vision, as related by himself
three days before the event.

Such a happening was strange and weird enough in all conscience; but it
was no more inexplicable on natural grounds than what follows. Among
Lord Lyttelton's boon companions was a Mr Andrews, with whom he had
often discussed the possibilities of a future life. On one such occasion
his lordship had said: "Well, if I die first, and am allowed, I will
come and inform you."

The words were probably spoken more in jest than in earnest, and Mr
Andrews no doubt little dreamt how the prom