The valet unlocked a morocco traveling case, and took out a vial and medicine chest.
"The medicine, your gra——, sir, I mean."
"Ah, yes, I forgot. Thank you," said the young man, and he took the draught with a weary patience. "Thanks. Let me know when his lordship arrives. No, I want nothing more."
The valet went out, shutting the door softly after him, and his master leaned his head upon his 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.