“Cast your eyes for a moment,” he declared, amid impressive silence, “on the state of the Empire.  America, that vast Continent, with all its advantages to us as a commercial and maritime people—­lost—­for ever lost to us; the West Indies abandoned; Ireland ready to part from us.  Ireland, my lords, is armed; and what is her language?  ’Give us free trade and the free Constitution of England as it originally was, such as we hope it will remain, the best calculated of any in the world for the preservation of freedom.’”

It was the speech of a far-seeing statesman; and although it proved but the “voice of one crying in the wilderness,” Lord Lyttelton felt that he had done his duty and had crowned his growing political fame with the laurels of the patriot and the orator.

On the following morning Fortescue met his cousin sauntering in St James’s Park, as Mr Makower tells us, “with the idleness of one who has never known what occupation means.”

“Is it because Hillsborough, the stupidest of your brother peers, paid you such fine compliments on your speech?” he asked.

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.