"Your Grace does me too much honour," spoke Grey in bewildered accents, "to bring me to your house, to sit up by my side—"
"Tush! That is but the habit of an old campaigner. My couch wooes me not as it does other men. I am used to little sleep and hard days. I live something too soft when I reach this land. Besides, yonder scroll absorbed me. For that you are responsible, my friend. Did I not tell you when first we met that you had the face of a poet? And for me there is stronger attraction in the poetry of prose than in that which expresses itself in rhyme and metre, which has a fashion of halting, like a horse whose legs begin to fail him, and who changes his feet or stumbles ever and anon."
The colour swept over Grey's pale face. He remembered now that the packet containing his romance was buttoned up tightly in the breast pocket of the outer coat which he wore that day. Doubtless, it had fallen out when they took off his clothes, and there it lay spread out upon, the table, more than three parts read by the Duke himself.
"I ask no pardon for my boldness in thus scanning your romance," proceeded the great man kindly, "albeit I did open the packet with intent to discover if it might contain your place of abode, so that I might send word to your friend where you were and what had befallen you. Now wherefore this start and upraising? Did I not tell you it behoved you to lie still? Must I call the physician from his slumbers to repeat his orders himself?"
"I crave your Grace's pardon," answered Grey, sinking back upon his pillows; "but your words did bring back to me the remembrance of a sick old man, dependent upon me for tendance and care. When I left him, I knew that for many hours he had all that he did need beside him. But if I am long detained from his side, he must needs suffer lack and hurt."
"Nay; but I will see that he does neither. Tell me only where he may be found, and I will send a trusty messenger to do all that is needful, and make arrangements for his comfort during the time which may elapse before you can return."
So Grey gave the needful information, and the Duke issued some orders to his servants in the outer room, returning to the bedside with a face expressive of a kindly curiosity and wonder.
Sitting down at the bedside, and entering into friendly talk with the young man, it was not difficult to draw from him a full and detailed account of all that had betided since they first met upon the field of Ramillies, and Grey had gone back to his native land to see what fortune had in store for him there.
The Duke made an excellent and sympathetic listener. He was sincerely interested in this young man. He owed him a personal debt of gratitude. Both he and his wife suspected that Lady Geraldine Adair, her favourite, was more than a little attracted by young Sir Grey Dumaresq, whom she had admitted to have met more than once during his brief career as a gentleman of fashion and the friend of Lord Sandford. They had seen self-betrayal in her face last night when he was carried in senseless, and she knew that he was her unknown preserver, who had diverted the attack of the young street ruffians from her chair, and had thus given time for the Duke's carriage to come up; and it had recalled to their minds and hearts the memory of their own young courting days, when John Churchill was paying his addresses to Sarah Jennings, and they could see and think of nothing but each other and their love. That Grey Dumaresq had fallen upon evil times there could be no manner of doubt, and that his fortunes were at the lowest ebb was manifest; yet the Duke, as he listened to the tale, was revolving many matters in his mind, and only spoke to lead the young man on by some well-timed question to express himself with more freedom and detail.
As for Grey, when once the ice had been broken, he had no desire for reserve. There was a strange sense of comfort and relief in pouring out his tale into sympathetic ears. The only matters he held back were his suspicions of others—firstly, those respecting his kinsman, and any possible hand he might have had in hastening his father's death; and secondly, those concerning Lord Sandford and his possible treachery towards himself. It seemed to him unfair to speak of unproven suspicions of crime or evil plotting to one so high in station as the Duke of Marlborough, whose smile or frown might mean so much to those who merited it. But of all else he spoke with frank freedom and unreserve; and at the last, when his tale was told, he saw the kindly gaze of the Duke bent upon him with shrewd searching inquiry.