The child hesitated. "Good night," he said gravely, advancing a step nearer. The sun was still streaming across the room, but it seemed to him, as he looked at the familiar, unfamiliar face, that it was night already. "Don't kiss me," said the dying man. "Good night." And the child went. Mr. Tempest sighed heavily, and relaxed his hold on the consciousness that was ready to slip away from him, and wander feebly out he knew not whither. Hours and voices came and went. His own voice had gone down into silence before him. It was still broad daylight, but the casement was slowly growing "a glimmering square," and he observed it. Presently it flickered--glimmered--and went out. CHAPTER III. "As the foolish moth returning To its Moloch, and its burning, Wheeling nigh, and ever nigher, Falls at last into the fire, Flame in flame; So the soul that doth begin Making orbits round a sin, Ends the same." It was a sultry night in June rather more than a year after Mr. Tempest's death. An action had been brought by Colonel Tempest directly after his brother's death, when the will was proved in which Mr. Tempest bequeathed everything in his power to bequeath to his "son John." The action failed; no one except Colonel Tempest had ever been sanguine that it would succeed. Colonel Tempest was unable to support an assertion of which few did not recognize the probable truth. No proof of John's suspected illegitimacy was forthcoming. His mother had died when he was born; it was eleven years ago. The fact that Mr. Tempest had mentioned him by name as his son in his will was overwhelming evidence to the contrary. The long-delayed blow fell at last. A verdict was given in favour of the little schoolboy. "I'm sorry for you, I am, indeed," said Mr. Swayne, composedly watching Colonel Tempest flinging himself about his little room, into which the latter had just rushed, nearly beside himself at the decision of a bribed and perjured court.