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