Lewis would not answer this, and Skelton repeated it. Lewis remained obstinately silent, and that told the whole story. “And,” again asked Skelton, his voice trembling, “have you never felt any of those instinctive emotions, any of that natural feeling towards me, that I felt towards you the first moment I saw you, when you were barely six years old? for I tell you that, had I never seen you until this moment, there is something--there is the strong voice of Nature--that would tell me you were my son.” To this, also, Lewis would make no answer. It had begun to dawn upon his boyish soul that, along with his own keen shame and distress, he was inflicting something infinitely keener and more distressing upon Skelton. There was a longer pause after this. Lewis ceased his sobbing, and sat, with a white and wretched face, looking down, the image of shame and sorrow. As for Skelton, his heart was torn with a tempest of feeling. Disappointment and remorse and love and longing battled fiercely within him. With all his wealth, with all his power, with all his capacity to charm, he could not bring to him that one childish heart for which he yearned. He was not unprepared for shame and even reproaches on the boy’s part, but this stubborn resistance was maddening. A dull-red flush glowed in his dark face. He was not used to asking forgiveness, but if the boy exacted it he would not even withhold that. “It is hard--it is hard for a father to ask forgiveness of his child, but I ask it of you, Lewis. Your mother granted it me with her dying breath. Will you be more unforgiving than she? Will you deny me the reparation that would have made her happy?” Lewis raised his black eyes to Skelton’s. “Yes, I forgive you,” he said simply; “but, Mr. Skelton, you can’t expect me to give up my good name without a struggle for it. Wouldn’t you struggle for yours, sir?” “Yes,” answered Skelton, with that glow of pride which he always felt when Lewis showed manliness of feeling. “Then, sir, you can’t complain when I--when Mr. Bulstrode--Mr. Bulstrode is my guardian, sir--” “But, Lewis,” continued Skelton, without the smallest impatience but with a loving insistence, “this is trifling. Why should I open this terrible subject unless everything concerning it were proved--unless it were demanded? Do you think this a sudden madness on my part? It is not. It is, I admit, a sudden determination. I had meant to wait until you were twenty-one--until you were prepared in a measure for it; but circumstances, and the love I bear you, Lewis, have hastened it.” Lewis sat gravely considering.