Presently thought returned to Skelton. Sylvia was now in the mood in which she could refuse him nothing; she had acknowledged that she loved him; now was the time to speak for Lewis, for the one passion had by no means swallowed up the other. “Sylvia,” said he in his most eloquent tones, and looking at her with his soul in his eyes, “could you forgive much in the past life of the man you loved? Think well before you answer, because some women who love much cannot forgive anything.” Sylvia turned very pale; she knew well enough what he meant; she knew he was making a plea for Lewis Pryor. “Yes,” she said, after a tremulous pause, “I could forgive much in the past. What is past is no injury to me; but I don’t think I could be forgiving for any injury to _me_.” She had withdrawn a little from him, and her last words were spoken quite firmly and clearly and with unflinching eyes. Sylvia had a spirit of her own, and that was a time for plain speaking. She did not lose in Skelton’s esteem by her boldness. “Then we are agreed,” answered Skelton with equal boldness; “for I shall have no forgiveness to ask in the future. I shall have to ask forgiveness for something in the past--something I cannot tell you now. I will write it to you. But I will say this: I believe you to be the most magnanimous woman in the world, and for that, partly, I love you.” There is a common delusion that all men make love alike. Never was there a greater mistake. There is no one particular in which a man of sense is more strongly differentiated from a fool than in his love-making. Skelton had the most exquisite tact in the world. He had to admit to his own wrongdoing, but he did it so adroitly that he easily won forgiveness. He had to make terms for Lewis, and he had to tell Sylvia that he could not make her a very rich woman; but he made the one appear the spontaneous act of Sylvia’s generosity, and the other was the most powerful proof of his affection for her. So can a man of brains wrest disadvantage to his advantage. Sylvia heard him through, making occasionally little faint stands against him that never amounted to anything. There was already treason in the citadel, and all she wanted was a chance to surrender. Skelton knew all the transformations of the cunning passion called love, and Sylvia’s flutterings were those of a bird in the snare of the fowler. An hour had passed since the storm had risen, and it was now dying away as rapidly as it had come up. Sylvia slipped from Skelton and went and stood by a window at the farther end of the hall. The exaltation was too keen; she craved a moment’s respite from the torrent of her own happiness. When Skelton joined her and clasped her hand, both of them were calmer. They experienced the serener joy of thinking and talking over their happiness, instead of being engulfed in the tempest of feeling.