Mrs. Blair sat quite silent and still. Bulstrode began to march about the room, running his hand through his shaggy hair and exclaiming at intervals, “Great Cæsar!” “Immortal Jove!” “Gadzooks!” Then turning towards her, he cried: “But there is another factor in it--another complication”--he came close to Mrs. Blair, and whispered: “Lewis Pryor.” Mrs. Blair started, and a rosy blush succeeded her paleness. “You know, the old Greeks had a word for such children as Lewis Pryor. They called them ‘the children of the soul.’ Now, the fool of a solicitor who drew Mrs. Skelton’s will, in securing the reversion of the property to the children of Richard Skelton, did not provide at all against any children that he might have had when he married Mrs. Skelton. Good God! madam, did you ever know such a concatenation of follies and misunderstandings and mistakes? Scarcely a single design of Mrs. Skelton’s is carried out; and either you must get the property, or Skelton must acknowledge Lewis Pryor. But,” continued Bulstrode, his voice rising to a shout, “the end of difficulties is not yet. Great Jupiter! all the ingenuity of man could not bring about such strange complications as blind Fate would have it. Skelton took such pains to make Lewis Pryor out to be the son of his old tutor and his wife, and they became so fond of the boy, that among them all they obliterated every proof that Lewis Pryor was anything but Lewis Pryor. There stands the testimony of the Pryors in their wills leaving their little belongings to their ‘beloved son, Lewis’--not a word said about adoption. They lived in terror that Skelton would some time or other take the boy away from them, and they meant to make a fight for him. Skelton then was as anxious as they were that the secret should be kept. He made them a handsome allowance, but he was so astute about it that not even _that_ could be proved. Never man so overreached himself as Richard Skelton. The Pryors both died when Lewis was about five years old. Skelton sent for him--from an awakening sense of duty, I fancy--and immediately conceived such a passion of paternal love as you never saw in your life, and could never part with him afterwards. You love your boy; Skelton idolises his.” Bulstrode had stopped his agitated walk while telling this, but he began it again, his lumbering figure making grotesque shadows on the wall. Mrs. Blair listened, overwhelmed as much by Bulstrode’s manner as by the strange things he was telling her. Presently he came, and, sitting down by the table, brought his fist down so hard that the candles jumped.