"Your lordship might see the inside of the Tower for that pretty oration, were one of us minded to turn traitor," said Asterley, as he set down his empty glass. "I am not afraid," answered Bolingbroke. "I have a good many friends capable of playing Judas, but not one whose word would be taken without confirmatory evidence." "As you are in the house of a man who owes title and estate to a staunch adherence to Whig principles in the person of his ancestors, I think you should drink to her Majesty Queen Caroline, who is a much better King than her husband," said Lavendale. "O, to Caroline by all means," cried Bolingbroke; "Caroline is a capital fellow." And the Queen's health was drunk upstanding, with three times three. Then came the toast of Woman, Wit, and Beauty, coupled with the name of Lady Judith Topsparkle, in a brilliant speech from Bolingbroke, who had swallowed as much champagne as would have made a lesser man dead-drunk, but who was only pleasantly elevated, a more vivid brightness in his flashing eyes, a more commanding air in his fine and somewhat portly person. He spoke for twenty minutes at a stretch, and the company all hung upon his words with delight--could have listened to that gay spontaneous eloquence for an hour. "Woman, wit, beauty, and the highest exemplar of all three, Lady Judith Topsparkle," cried Asterley, standing upon his chair, and waving his glass above his head. There was a roar of applause, a guzzling of wine, a crash of shivered glass, as the more reckless drinkers flung their empty glasses across their shoulders; and then above that medley of sounds, came silver clear the striking of the clock in the hall. Midnight. Lavendale counted the strokes, listening with breathless intensity, his hand inside his waistcoat pressed nervously against his heart. The last stroke sounded, and he lived. The beating of his heart seemed to him calmer and more regular than it had been all day. He had no sense of faintness or failing strength--a keener life rather, a quicker circulation in all his veins, a sense of lightness and well-being, as of one who had cast off some heavy burden. "Gentlemen," he said, "look at your watches and tell me--is that clock right?" His friends pulled out their watches and consulted them with the most natural air in the world. "Yes, your clock is right enough," said Bolingbroke. "'Tis three minutes slow by my timekeeper," said Asterley: "I take it the new year is just three minutes old." "Then 'twas an hallucination," cried Lavendale, "and I am a free man." The revulsion of feeling overpowered him, and he broke into a half-hysterical sob; but Judith's hand upon his shoulder calmed him again, and he sat by her side as the fiddles and flutes in the hall struck up a joyous air, and the revellers left the table. "Now for a dance," exclaimed Judith: "we have drunk out the old year; let us dance in the new one. Lady Polwhele, I'll wager those girlish feet of yours are impatient for a jig."