The words were probably spoken more in jest than in earnest, and Mr Andrews no doubt little dreamt how the promise would be fulfilled.  On the night of Lord Lyttelton’s death Mr Andrews, who expected his lordship to pay him a visit on the following day, had retired to bed at his house at Dartford, in Kent.

When in bed, to quote from Mr Plumer Ward’s “Illustrations of Human Life,” he fell into a sound sleep, but was waked between eleven and twelve o’clock by somebody opening his curtains.  It was Lord Lyttelton, in a nightgown and cap which Andrews recognised.  He also spoke plainly to him, saying that he was come to tell him all was over.  It seems that Lord Lyttelton was fond of horseplay; and, as he had often made Andrews the subject of it, the latter had threatened his lordship with physical chastisement the very next time that it should occur.  On the present occasion, thinking that the annoyance was being renewed, he threw at Lord Lyttelton’s head the first thing that he could find—­his slippers.  The figure retreated towards a dressing-room, which had no ingress or egress except through the bed-chamber; and Andrews, very angry, leaped out of bed in order to follow it into the dressing-room.  It was not there, however.

Surprised and amazed, he returned at once to the bedroom, which he strictly searched. The door was locked on the inside, yet no Lord Lyttelton was to be found.  In his perplexity, Mr Andrews rang for his servant, and asked if Lord Lyttelton had not arrived.  The man answered:  “No, sir.”  “You may depend upon it,” said Mr Andrews, thoroughly mystified and out of humour, “that he is somewhere in the house.  He was here just now, and he is playing some trick or other.  However, you can tell him that he won’t get a bed here; he can sleep in the stable or at the inn if he likes.”

After a further vain search of the bed-chamber and the dressing-room, Mr Andrews returned to bed and to sleep, having no doubt whatever that his too jocular friend was in hiding somewhere near.  On the afternoon of the following day news came to him that Lord Lyttelton had died the previous night at the very time that he (Mr Andrews) was searching for his midnight visitant, and abusing him roundly for what he considered his ill-timed practical joke.  On hearing the news, we are told, Mr Andrews swooned away, and such was its effect on him that, to use his own words, “he was not himself or a man again for three years.”

CHAPTER VI

A MESSALINA OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

There have been bad women in all ages, from Messalina, who waded recklessly through blood to the gratification of her passions, to that Royal mountebank, Queen Christina of Sweden, whose laughter rang out while her lover Monaldeschi was being foully done to death at her bidding by Count Sentinelli, his successor in her affections; and in this baleful company the notorious Lady Shrewsbury won for herself a dishonourable place by a lust for cruelty as great as that of Christina or Messalina, and by a Judas-like treachery which even they, who at least flaunted their crimes openly, would have blushed to practise.