emotions. There were stories so brilliant to be heard of him on all
sides, stories of other actions so marvellously ruthless and of things
so wondrously mean. Upon a bargain so shameless he had built so
wondrous a career--a faithfulness of service so magnificent he had
closed with a treachery so base. All greatness and all littleness, all
heroism and all crimes, seemed to combine themselves in this one
strange being. Having shamelessly sold his youth to a King's mistress,
he devoted his splendid maturity to a tender, faithful passion for a
beauteous virago, whose displeasure was the sole thing on earth which
moved him to pain or fear. In truth 'twas not his genius, his bravery,
his victories, which held Roxholm's thought upon him most constantly;
'twas two other things, the first being the marvel of his control over
himself, the power with which he held in subjection his passions, his
emotions, almost, it seemed, his very thoughts themselves--the power
with which he had trained John Churchill to be John Churchill's
servant--in peril, in temptation from any weakness to which he did not
choose to succumb, in circumstances which, arising without warning,
might have caused another man to start, to falter, to change colour,
but which he encountered with indomitable calm.

"Tis that I wish to learn," said the young nobleman in his secret
thoughts as he watched him at Court, in the world outside it, among
soldiers, statesmen, women, in the society of those greater than
himself, of those smaller, of those he would win and of those he would
repel. "'Tis that I would learn: to be stronger than my very self, so
that naught can betray me--no passion I am tormented by, no anger I
would conceal, no lure I would resist. 'Tis a man's self who oftenest
entraps him. The traitor once subject, life lies at one's feet."

The second thing which stirred the young observer's interest was the