hand, and closed his eyes.
Fate had dealt very strangely with this young man. With one hand it had showered upon him most of the gifts which the sons of men set high store by; it had made him a duke, had given him palaces, vast lands, money in such abundance as to be almost a burden; and with the other hand, as if in scorn and derision of the thing called Man, Fate had struck him one of those blows under which humanity is crushed and broken.
A nurse had let him, when a child, slip from her arms, and the great Duke of Rothbury was doomed to go through life a stunted and crooked-back object, with the grim figure of pain always marching by his side, with the bitter knowledge that not all his wealth could prevent the people he met in the streets regarding him with curious and pitying glances, with the bitter sense that the poorest of the laborers on his estates enjoyed a better lot than his, and was more to be envied than himself.
He sat perfectly motionless for some minutes; then he opened his eyes and started slightly; Leslie had just begun to sing.
He wheeled his chair to the window, and set it open quietly, and, keeping behind the curtains, listened with evident pleasure.
The song was still floating across to him when a young man came marching up the street.
Youth is a glorious thing under any circumstances, but when it is combined with perfect health, good temper, a handsome face, and a stalwart form it is god-like in its force and influence.
The little narrow street of Portmaris seemed somehow to grow brighter and wider as the young man strode up it; his well-knit form swaying a little to right and left, his well-shaped head perfectly poised, his bright eyes glancing here and there with intelligent interest, the pleasure-loving lips whistling softly from sheer light-heartedness. He stopped as he came opposite Sea View, and listened to Leslie's song, nodding his head approvingly; then he caught sight of the "Marine Villa" on the opposite house, and walked straight into the little hall.
"Hallo, Grey," he said, and his voice rang, not hardly and unpleasantly, but with that clear golden timbre which only belongs to the voice of a man in perfect health. "Here you are, then! And how is——."
Grey smiled as he bent his head respectfully; everybody was glad to see the young man.
"Yes, my lord. Just got down. His gra——. We are pretty well considering the journey, my lord. He will see your lordship at once."
"All right," said the young fellow. "I rode as far as Northcliffe, but left the horse there, as I didn't know what sort of stables they'd have here."
"You were right, my lord," said Grey, in the approving tone of a confidential servant. "This seems a rare out-of-the-way place. And I should doubt there being a decent stable here."
"Ah, well, the duke will like it all the better for being quiet," the young fellow said.
Grey put his hand to his lips, and coughed apologetically.
"Beg pardon, my lord, but his gra——, that is—well, you'll excuse me, my lord, but we're down here quite incog., as you may say."
As Lord Auchester, staring at the man, was about to laugh, the clear, rather shrill voice of the invalid was heard from the room.
"Is that you, Yorke? Why do you not come in?"
The young fellow entered, and took the long thin hand the duke extended to him.
"Hallo, Dolph!" he said, lowering his voice. "How are you? What made you think of coming to this outlandish spot?"
The duke, still holding his cousin's hand, smiled up at him with a mixture of sadness and self raillery.
"I can't tell you, Yorke; I got tired of town, and told Grey to hunt up some place in Bradshaw that he had never heard of, some place right out of the beaten track, and he chose this."
"Poor unfortunate man!" said Lord Auchester, with a laugh.
"Yes, Grey suffers a great deal from my moods and humors; and so do other persons, yourself to wit, Yorke. It was very kind of you to come to me so soon."
"Of course I came," said Lord Auchester. "I wasn't very far off, you see."
"Fishing?" said the duke, with evident interest.
"Y-es; oh, yes," replied the other young man, quickly. "I rode over as far as Northcliffe——."
The duke sighed as his eyes wandered musingly over the stalwart, well-proportioned frame.
"You ought to have been in the army, Yorke," he said.
Lord Auchester laughed.
"So I should have been if they hadn't made the possession of brains a sine qua non; it seems you want brains for pretty nearly everything nowadays; and it's just brains I'm short of, you see, Dolph."
"You have everything else," said the duke, in a low voice.
He sighed and turned his head away; not that he envied his cousin his handsome face and straight limbs.
"You haven't told me what you wanted me for, Dolph," said Lord Auchester, after a pause, during which both men had been listening half unconsciously to the sweet voice in the cottage opposite.
"I wanted—nothing," said the duke.
"There is nothing I can do for you?"
"Nothing; unless," with a sigh and a wistful smile, "unless you can by the wave of a magician's wand change this crooked body of mine for something like your own."
"I would if I could, Dolph," said the other, bending over him, and laying a pair of strong hands soothingly on the invalid's bent shoulders.
"I know that, Yorke. But you cannot, can you? I dare say you think I am a peevish, discontented wretch, and that I ought, as the poor Emperor of Germany said, to bear my pain without complaining——."
"No, Dolph; I think you complain very little, and face the music first rate," put in the other.
"Thanks. I try to most times, and I could succeed better than I do if I were always alone, but sometimes——," he sighed bitterly. "Why is it that the world is so false, Yorke? Are there no honest men besides you and Grey, and half a dozen others I could mention? And are there no honest women at all?"
Yorke Auchester raised his eyebrows and laughed.
"What's wrong with the women?" he said.
The duke leaned his head upon his hand, and partially hid his face, which had suddenly become red.
"Everything is wrong with them, Yorke," he said, gravely and in a low voice. "You know, or perhaps you do not know, how I esteem, reverence, respect a woman; perhaps because I dare not love them."
Yorke Auchester nodded.
"If all the men felt as you do about women there would be no bad ones in the world, Dolph," he said.
"To me there is something sacred in the very word. My heart expands, grows warm in the presence of a good woman. I cannot look at a beautiful girl without thinking—don't misunderstand me, Yorke."
"No, no, old chap!"
"I love, I reverence them; and yet they have made me fly from London, have caused me almost to vow that I will never go back; that I will hide my misshapen self for the rest of my weary days——."
"Why Dolph——."
"Listen," said the duke. "Look at me, Yorke. Ah, it is unnecessary. You know what I am. A thing for women to pity, to shudder at—not to love! And yet"—he hid his face—"some of them have tried to persuade me that I—I—could inspire a young girl with love; that I—I—oh, think of it, Yorke!—that I had only to offer myself as a husband to the most beautiful, the fairest, straightest, queenliest of them, to be accepted!"
Yorke Auchester leaned over him.
"You take these things too seriously,