Chapter 14 - Page 2

to every man in his five villages, and those who had
worshipped him as their master's heir loved and revered him as their
master.

The great Marlborough wrote a friendly letter expressing his sympathy
for him in the calamity by which he had been overtaken, and also his
regret at the loss of his services and companionship, he having at once
resigned his commission in the army on the occurrence of his
bereavement, not only feeling desirous of remaining in England, but
finding it necessary to do so.

He spent part of the year upon his various estates in the country, but
quarrels of Whigs and Tories, changes in the Cabinet, and the bitter
feeling against the march into Germany and the struggles which promised
to result, gave him work to do in London and opportunities for the
development of those abilities his Grace of Marlborough had marked in
him. The air on all sides was heavy with storm--at Court the enemies of
Duchess Sarah (and they were many, whether they confessed themselves or
not) were prognosticating her fall from her high post of ruler of the
Queen of England, and her lord from his pinnacle of fame; there were
high Tories and Jacobites who did not fear to speak of the scaffold as
the last stage likely to be reached by the greatest military commander
the country had ever known in case his march into Germany ended in
disaster. There were indeed questions so momentous to be pondered over
that for long months my lord Duke had but little time for reflection
upon those incidents which had disturbed him by appearing to result
from the workings of persistent Fate.

But in a locked cabinet in his private closet there lay a picture which
sometimes, as it were, despite himself, he took from its hiding-place
to look upon; and when he found himself gazing at the wondrous face of
storm, with its great stag's eyes, he knew that the mere sight waked in
him the old tumult and that it did not lose its first strange,
unexplained power. And once sitting studying the picture, his thought
uttered itself aloud, his voice curiously breaking upon the stillness
of the room.

"It is," he said, "as if that first hour a deep chord of music had been
struck--a stormy minor chord--and each time I hear of her or see her
the same chord is struck loud again, and never varies by a note. I
swear there is a question in her eyes--and I--I could answer it. Yet,
for my soul's sake, I must keep away."

He knew honour itself demanded this of him, for the stories which came
to his ears were each wilder and more fantastic than the other, and
sometimes spoke strange evil of her--of her violent temper, of her
wicked tongue, of her outraging of all customs and decencies, but,
almost incredible as