uth '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
great man's great love. The most parsimonious and mercantile of
beings, he had married a poor beauty when fair creatures with fortunes
smiled upon him on every side; the most indomitable of spirits, the
warrior of whom armies stood in awe, he was the willing subject of a
woman whose fiery temper and tempestuous spirit the world knew as well
as it knew her beauty and her dominating charm. For some reason he
could scarcely have analyzed, it gave Roxholm a strange pleasure to
hear anecdotes of the passionate love-letters scrawled on the field--on
the eve of battle, the hour after a great encounter and triumph; to
know that better than victory to the great conquerer, who could command
the slaughter of thousands without the quiver of a muscle or a moment's
qualm, were the few lines in a woman's hand which told him he was
forgiven for some fancied wrong or missed in some tender hour.

"My Lady Sarah is a handsome creature, and ever was one," 'twas said,
"but there are those who are greater beauties, and who have less
brimstone in the air about them and less lightning in their eyes."

"But 'twas she who was his own," Roxholm said to himself in pondering
it over, "and when their eyes met each kne