She had never been ill in John's recollection. She had had "a bone in her leg" occasionally, but excepting that mysterious ailment and a touch of rheumatism in later years, Mitty had always been quite well. She was not actually ill now, but---- It was useless to tell her not to "do" her nurseries herself, and to positively forbid her to wash his socks and handkerchiefs. Mitty worked exactly the same; and John with an ache at his heart came indoors every day in time for nursery tea, and Mitty made him buttered toast, and was happy beyond words; but I think her eyesight must have begun to fail her, or she would have seen how grey and haggard the face of her "lamb" became as the days went by. * * * * * Who shall say when a thought begins? Long before we see it, it was there, but our eyes were holden. "L'amour commence par l'ombre." So do many things besides love. _The letters were destroyed._ When did John think of that first, or rather, when did he first hear it whispered? Why was his mind always going back to that? He would not have burned them if he had taken time to consider, but the first impulse to do with them as their writer had herself intended, had been acted upon before he had even thought of their bearing upon himself and others. At any rate they were gone--quite gone--sprinkled to the four winds of heaven. _There was no other proof._ And his--no, not his father--Mr. Tempest, who knew all about him, had intended him to be his heir. He had left him his name and his place, with a solemn charge to do his duty by them. "I have done it," said John to himself, "as those two would never have done. Shall I let all go to rack and ruin now? If I was not born a Tempest I have become one. I _am_ one, and if I marry one my children will be Tempests, and those two fools will not be suffered to pull Overleigh stone from stone, and drag a great name into the dust; as they would, as they assuredly would." Had not Mr. Tempest foreseen this when he exacted that solemn promise from John on his death-bed to uphold the honour of the family? Could he break that promise? And through the vain sophistries, upsetting them all, a mad cry rang, "Di loves me! She loves me at last! I cannot give her up!" The challenge was thrown out into the darkness. No one took it up. A fierce restlessness laid hold on John. He rushed up to London several times to hear how Colonel Tempest was going on. Each time he told himself that he was going to see Di. But although the first time he went to Colonel Tempest's lodgings the servant informed him that Di was with her father, he did not ask to see her. Each time he came back without having dared to go to the little house in Kensington. He could not meet those grave clear eyes with the new gentleness in them that went to his head like wine. He knew they would make him forget everything, everything except that he loved her, and would sell his very soul for her.