"One can scarce conceive that imagination could be powerful enough to kill a man," said Bolingbroke, after a long discussion, "yet I apprehend there is a state of the nerves and organs in which a mental shock may be fatal. I own I do not like the look of your friend this morning. There is a deadly pallor relieved only by a hectic flush which may deceive the inexperienced eye with the semblance of health, but which to me indicates an inward fever. The fancy about the vision of last evening may be hallucination, monomania, what you will, but the influence upon him is full of peril. All we can do is to try and distract his mind from dwelling on this one idea. Let us be as gay as ever we can to-day, and let the fair Judith exert her utmost power of fascination to make the hours pass quickly." "And what if we shortened this fatal day by at least one hour, and thus curtailed his nervous agony of apprehension?" suggested Durnford. "We might easily put on all the clocks towards night, so that they should strike twelve when it shall be but eleven; and then we can tell him the fatal moment is past, and that the ghostly warning has been belied by the passage of time. 'At midnight he was to die.' That was the doom the unearthly voice pronounced for him. He harped upon that word midnight: 'This is my last day upon earth,' he said: 'this night at twelve o'clock I shall be gone from you all.' If we could but delude him as to the fatal hour, laugh him into good spirits and forgetfulness, those shattered nerves of his might recover, and the poor over-strained heart beat evenly once again." "I see your drift," said Bolingbroke, "and will do my best to help you. It would be difficult to take an hour clean off the night without detection. We must begin to doctor the clocks soon after dusk: say that we put them on ten minutes before they strike six, and that from that time to eleven we gain ten minutes in each hour. It will need some subtlety to manage the job, unless there are any of the household whom you can trust to help you." "I would rather trust no one but you and my wife," answered Durnford. "Surely we three could manage the matter: there are only two clocks that need be doctored: the eight-day clock in the hall and the French timepiece in the saloon." "But there is his own watch, if he carries one: how are we to manage that?" "He has half a dozen watches, all out of order; I have not seen him carry one for the last six months." "Then there are our lively friends, who doubtless all wear watches, and who will betray us unless they are warned." "True: they must be told something that will make them hold their tongues. I will tell them we have hatched a practical joke--or that it is a wager--cheat Lavendale out of an hour." "You may leave them to me, I think," said Bolingbroke gaily, for to him the matter scarcely presented itself in its most serious light. "I know how to drive that kind of cattle."