I have constituted you his sole guardian, and trustee of the moderate property I bequeath him. He wishes to enter the army, and he will have money sufficient to purchase a commission and support himself respectably in some good regiment. I hope that when the proper time comes you will forward his ambition in this direction.
And so I leave him in your hands, for my feeble strength fails, and I can only add my name.
CHAPTER XLII.
HER SON.
The last lines of this sad letter were almost illegible in their faintness and irregularity; and the tangled skein of light scratches that stood proxy for a signature could never have been deciphered by the skill of man.
The Duke of Hereward had grown ten years older in the half hour he had spent in the perusal of this fatal letter. He was no longer only sixty-five years of age, and a "fine old English gentleman;" he seemed fully seventy-five years old, and a broken, decrepit, ruined man. In fact, the first blow had fallen upon that fine intellect whose subsequent eccentricities gained for him the sobriquet of the mad duke.
The hand that held the fatal letter fell heavily by his side; his head drooped upon his chest; he did not move or speak for many minutes.
His young visitor watched him with curiosity and interest that gradually grew into anxiety. At length he made a motion to attract the duke's attention—dropped a book upon the floor, picked it up, and arose to apologize.
The duke started as from a profound reverie, sighed heavily, passed his handkerchief across his brow, and finally wheeled his chair around, and looked at his visitor.