The man left him in the white stone hall where he and his brother Jack had played as boys. The dappled rocking-horse used to stand under the staircase, but it was no longer there: given away, no doubt, or broken up for firewood. John might have kept the poor old rocking-horse. Recollections that took the form of personal grievances were never far from Colonel Tempest's mind. In a few minutes the man returned, and said that Mr. Tempest would see him, and led the way upstairs. A solemn, melancholy-looking valet was waiting for him, who respectfully informed him that the doctor's orders were that his master should be kept very quiet, and should not be excited in any way. Colonel Tempest nodded unheeding, and was conscious of a door being opened, and his name announced. He went forward hesitatingly into a half-darkened room. "Pull up the further blind, Marshall," said John's voice. The servant did so, and noiselessly left the room. Colonel Tempest's heart smote him. The young man lay quite motionless, his dark head hardly raised, his swathed hands stretched out beside him. His unshaved face had the tension of protracted suffering, and the grave steady eyes which met Colonel Tempest's were bright with suppressed pain. The eyes were the only things that moved. It seemed to Colonel Tempest that if they were closed--. He shuddered involuntarily. In his morbid fancy the prostrate figure seemed to have already taken the rigid lines of death, the winding-sheet to be even now drawn up round the young haggard face. Colonel Tempest was not gifted with imagination where he himself was not concerned. He was under the impression that the influenza, from which he occasionally suffered, was the most excruciating form of mortal illness known to mankind. He never believed people were really ill until they were dead. Now he realized for the first time that John had been at death's door; that is to say, he realized what being at death's door was like, and he was fairly staggered! "Good God, John!" he said with a sort of groan. "I did not know it had been as bad as this." "Sit down," said John, as the nurse brought forward a chair to the bedside, and then withdrew, eyeing the new-comer suspiciously. "It is much better now. I receive callers. Hemsworth was here yesterday. I can shake hands a little; only be very gentle with me. I cry like a girl if I am more than touched." John feebly raised and held out a bandaged hand, of which the end of three fingers only were visible. Colonel Tempest, whose own feelings were invariably too deep to admit of his remembering those of others, pressed it spasmodically in his. "It goes to my heart to see you like this, John," he said with a break in his voice. John withdrew his hand. His face twitched a little, and he bit his lip, but in a few moments he spoke again firmly enough. "It is very good of you to come. Now that I have got round the corner, I shall be about again in no time."