"I believe," said John, in astonished recollection of divers passages between himself and them--"I believe they think I know all the time, and am deliberately keeping them out." That, then, was the reason why Mr. Tempest had not discarded him. To recognize him as his son was his surest means of striking at the hated brother who came next in the entail. "I was made use of," said John, grinding his teeth. It was no use fighting against it. This hideous, profane incredibility was the truth. Even without the letters to read over again he knew it was true. "Remember, if he casts it out, it is your child." The long-dead lips still spoke. His mother had pronounced his doom herself. "I am illegitimate," said John to himself. And he remembered Di and hid his face in his hands, while his mother simpered at him from the wall. The solid earth had failed beneath his feet. Let us beware how we sin, inasmuch as by God's decree we do not pay. We could almost conceive a right to do as we will, if we could keep the penalty to ourselves, and pay to the uttermost farthing. But not from us is the inevitable payment required. The young, the innocent, the unborn, smart for us, are made bankrupt for us; from them is exacted the deficit which we have left behind. The sins of the fathers are visited on the children heavily--heavily. CHAPTER VI. "What name doth Joy most borrow When life is fair? 'To-morrow.'" GEORGE ELIOT. On her hurried return to London the morning after the ice carnival, Di found Mrs. Courtenay in that condition of illness, not necessarily dangerous, in which the linseed poultice and the steam-kettle and the complexion of the beef-tea are the objects of an all-absorbing interest, to the exclusion of every other subject. Di was glad not to be questioned upon the one subject that was never absent from her thoughts. As Mrs. Courtenay became convalescent she was able to leave her for an hour or two, and pace in the quieter parts of Kensington Gardens. Happiness, like sorrow, is easier to bear out-of-doors, and Di had a lurking feeling that would hardly bear being put into words, but was none the worse company for that, that the crocuses and the first bird-note in the trees and the pale sky knew her secret and rejoiced with her.