"Nay, do not fear; do not let such thoughts trouble you. I have seen Mr. Butler. All will be well. My place will be kept for me till my return. When I am able for it, I shall play the 'Youth' again; and we will live upon the proceeds till you are hale and strong; and then you shall write a great play which shall hold the whole world captive and enthralled. But now trouble not yourself of these matters. Only rest, and all will be well."
"Well, well; yes, for me all will soon be well," was the old man's dreamy answer. "But for you, my son—for you, what will befall? Fickle Fortune did smile at you; but her smile has changed to a frown. The open door is closing in your face, and where will you find another?"
Grey smiled and answered not. At the present moment he was too worn out in mind and body even to care what the future might hold.
CHAPTER XV.
DARK DAYS.
For above a fortnight things went very strangely for Grey in that upper room which had been for so long his home. The Old Lion was very ill—dangerously ill for many days; and though the leech was called in several times, and sometimes gave a medicine which brought relief, it was little his skill availed, and the tender nursing of the young man was undoubtedly the means under Providence whereby the sick man's life was saved.
But Grey himself was suffering from severe prostration, from an intermittent fever, and from much pain from his burns, which were slow to heal and made his task of nursing very difficult.
Nevertheless he would let no one else rob him of this labour of love; for none could soothe the sick man as he could, and if left to other care, he always became restless and feverish.
As for the world without, that was altogether blotted out from Grey's thoughts. He never even heard of the return of the Duke of Marlborough from his glorious campaign of victory; he never knew of the grand procession through the streets from Whitehall to Guildhall, and thence to the Vintners' Hall, where the victor of Ramillies was feasted by the civic authorities, after the standards taken at the great battle had been flaunted through the streets and acclaimed by a huge and enthusiastic crowd.
All this, if he heard rumour of it, passed through his brain unheeded. He did not even know that the Duke attended a performance at Drury Lane of "Time and the Youth," and laughed and applauded the representation, in which so much subtle flattery had been introduced. Always eager for popular applause, the Duke was not a little delighted by the ovation he received in his own person, and in the words of the interlude itself, which were cheered to the echo by a house crowded to suffocation. Afterwards the actors were summoned before him, and each received a purse of gold from the hands of the Duchess. And she told the Duke how that the young actor had been so brave and prompt in the saving of the life of her favourite, Lady Geraldine, at the private performance of the piece a short while back. So great a lady as the Duchess could not be expected to note any difference in the actors of the interlude, and none explained her error, for what did it matter? Anthony Frewen and Lionel Field were drawing just as well as the original pair had done, since the enthusiasm for the Duke was increasing with his presence in England. They asked lower terms for their services, and they gave none of the trouble that the Old Lion had done by his autocratic demands and his hasty temper. The managers of both theatres were well content with matters as they were, and congratulated themselves that nothing more had been heard of their former employés. Wylde's uncertain health would render his re-engagement a matter of some difficulty, if not of impossibility; and Anthony Frewen had openly declared that he would act only with Field. They had studied together. They understood each other, and they wanted no "interloper" coming between them.