Skelton shut and locked the library door, and, tenderly placing the boy’s head in a more comfortable position, sat down in a great chair and watched him. He could not at that moment bear to have Lewis out of his sight. Yes, the time had now come that he could tell him what had burned within him for so long. The boy was in himself so graceful, so gifted, there was so much to give him, that the foolish world would be compelled to court him and to forget that stain upon him. Skelton said to himself that, had he the choice of every quality a boy should have, he would have chosen just such a mind and character as Lewis had. He was so thoroughly well balanced; he had a fine and vigorous mind, high up in the scale of talent, but far removed from the abnormal quality of genius; there would be for him no stupendous infantile performances to haunt the whole of his future life, no overweighting of any one faculty to the disproportion of the rest. And then, he had an eaglet’s spirit. Skelton smiled when he remembered that no human being had ever so stood upon punctilio with him as this little black-eyed boy. He had, too, an exquisite common sense, which enabled him to submit readily to proper authority; he was obedient enough to Bulstrode. And then, he had so much pride that he could never be vain; and he had naturally the most modest and graceful little air in the world. Ah, to think that with such a boy the Blairs should dream that heaven and earth would not be moved to see him righted! And, since the boy was the instrument to defeat the Blairs, there was no reason that Skelton should not follow up that fancy for Sylvia Shapleigh. On the whole, he could part with the money with an excellent grace to Lewis, and he would still be rich, according to the standard of the people about him. Sylvia would forgive Lewis’s existence. Skelton was no mean judge of women, and he knew instinctively that Sylvia Shapleigh would be the most forgiving woman in the world for what had happened in the past, and the most unforgiving one of any future disloyalty. He even smiled to himself when he imagined the discomfiture of the Blairs. He would give them no warning; and he felt perfectly certain that Blair would not avail himself of that suggestion made to Mrs. Blair to ride over to Deerchase and see for himself. And then, if Sylvia would marry him, imagine the excitement of the Blairs, the fierce delight, and then the chagrin, the disappointment of finding out that Lewis Pryor was to step in and get all that they had looked upon as theirs. Skelton even began to see that possibly this forcing a decision upon him was not half a bad thing. He had been haunted for some months by Sylvia Shapleigh’s wit and charm; her beauty, he rightly thought, was overestimated, but her power to please was not esteemed half enough. He had begun lately for the first time to look forward apprehensively to old age. He sometimes fancied himself sitting alone in his latter days