e with the
reverend gentlemen who were the spiritual directors of his people. Such
duties gave him less time for brooding than he would have had upon his
hands had he been a man more thoughtless of what his responsibilities
implied, and, consequently, more willing to permit them to devolve upon
those in his employ.

"A man should himself know all things pertaining to his belongings,"
the new Duke said to Lord Dunstanwolde, "and all those who serve him
should be aware that he knows, and that he will no more allow his
dependents to cheat or slight him than he himself will stoop to
carelessness or dishonesty in his dealings with themselves. To govern
well, a man must be ruler as well as friend."

And this he was to every man in his five villages, and those who had
worshipped him as their master's heir loved and revered him as their
master.

The great Marlborough wrote a friendly letter expressing his sympathy
for him in the calamity by which he had been overtaken, and also his
regret at the loss of his services and companionship, he having at once
resigned his commission in the army on the occurrence of his
bereavement, not only feeling desirous of remaining in England, but
finding it necessary to do so.

He spent part of the year upon his various estates in the country, but
quarrels of Whigs and Tories, changes in the Cabinet, and the bitter
feeling against the march into Germany and the struggles which promised
to result, gave him work to do in London and opportunities for the
development of those abilities his Grace of Marlborough had marked in
him. The air on all sides was heavy with storm--at Court the enemies of
Duchess Sarah (and they were many, whether they confessed themselves or
not) were prognosticating her fall from her high post of ruler of the
Queen of England, and her lord from his pinnacle of fame; there were
high Tories and Jacobites who did not fear to speak of the scaffold as
the last stage likely to be reached by the greatest military commander
the country had ever known in case his march into Germany ended in
disaster. There were indeed questions so momentous to be pondered over
that for long months my lord Duke had but little time for reflection
upon those incidents which had disturbed him by appearing to result
from the workings of persistent Fate.

But in a locked cabinet in his private closet there lay a picture which
sometimes, as it were, despite himself, he took from its hiding-place
to l