"Yes, yes," said Colonel Tempest, as if reassuring himself. "You will be all right again soon." "You look knocked up," said John, considering him attentively with his dark earnest gaze. "Do I?" said Colonel Tempest. "I dare say I do. Yes, people may not notice it as a rule. I keep things to myself, always have done all my life, but--it will drag me into my grave if it goes on much longer, I know that." "If what goes on?" It is all very well for a nervous rider to look boldly at a hedge two fields away, but when he comes up with it, and feels his horse quicken his pace under him, he begins to wonder what the landing on the invisible other side will be like. There was a long silence, broken only by Lindo, John's Spanish poodle, who, ensconced in an armchair by the bedside, was putting an aristocratic and extended hind leg through an afternoon toilet by means of searching and sustained suction. "I don't suppose there is a more wretched man in the world than I am, John," said Colonel Tempest at last. "There is something on your mind, perhaps." "Night and day," said Colonel Tempest, wishing John would not watch him so closely. "I have not a moment's peace." "You are in money difficulties," said John, justly divining the only cause that was likely to permanently interfere with his uncle's peace of mind. "Yes," said Colonel Tempest. "I am at my wit's end, and that is the truth." John's lips tightened a little, and he remained silent. That was why his uncle had come to see him then. His pride revolted against Colonel Tempest's want of it, against Archie's sponge-like absorption of all John would give him. He felt (and it was no idle fancy of a wealthy man) that he would have died rather than have asked for a shilling. A Tempest should be above begging, should scorn to run in debt. John's pride of race resented what was in his eyes a want of honour in the other members of the family of which he was the head. Colonel Tempest was in a position of too much delicacy not to feel hurt by John's silence. He reflected on the invariable meanness of rich men, with a momentary retrospect of how open-handed he had been himself in his youth, and even after his crippling marriage. "I do not know the circumstances," said John at last. "No one does," said Colonel Tempest. "Neither have I any wish to know them," said John, with a touch of haughtiness, "except in so far as I can be of use to you." Colonel Tempest found himself very disagreeably placed. He would have instantly lost his temper if he had been a few weeks younger, but the memory of those last few weeks recurred to him like a douche of cold water. Self-interest would not allow him to throw away his last chance of escaping out of Swayne's clutches, and he had a secret conviction that no storming or passion of any kind would have any effect on that prostrate figure, with the stern feeble voice, and intense fixity of gaze.