But during the discussion in the Deerchase library one mild September morning, between the two men, the whole thing liked to have fallen through. Blair saw so conclusively he had no show that he perceived he was accepting hush money. This his pride could by no means admit, and he professed not to consider Skelton’s proofs so positive as Skelton thought them. This angered Skelton. He saw in a moment where the shoe pinched. The sum that Skelton offered him was by no means commensurate with the interests he was giving up, if he had any interests at all; but still it would put him on his feet; it would make him solvent; he would once more be a free man. But Blair would not acknowledge this; he professed to be quite indifferent to it, and, as men will do under such circumstances, declared he preferred that the law should settle it. It was as much as Skelton could do to refrain from calling him a fool. However, Blair was no fool; he was only an intensely human man, who loved and hated as most men do, and who wanted to satisfy his creditors, but who did not like the idea of his enemy knowing that he was taking money for holding his tongue because his rights in the matter had proved to be a chimera. It looked at one time as if the final word would be a disagreement. Skelton sat on one side of the table, with a contemptuous half-smile on his countenance, drawing pen-and-ink sketches upon scraps of paper. Blair sat on the other side, his face as black as midnight. But in the end Skelton’s strong determination prevailed on Blair’s more violent but less certain will power; coolness prevailed over hot-headedness, reason over unreason. At the very last, when Blair had yielded and agreed to take some thousands of dollars, a strange thing happened to Skelton. A perfectly sudden, overpowering, and phenomenal generosity seized upon him. All at once he realised how hard he had been upon Blair’s susceptibilities; Blair was a gentleman, and high-strung for all his faults; it was humiliating to him to want the money so badly that he was obliged to take it; he would have liked to have flung it in Skelton’s face; and, thinking this over rapidly, without a word Skelton sat down, pulled the completed draft of the agreement toward him, and doubled the first figure of the sum named. Blair could hardly believe his eyes. He looked at Skelton for fully five minutes, while the thing was slowly impressing itself upon his mind. His face flushed scarlet; his lips worked; he was deeply agitated. Skelton walked to the window and looked out. His eyes sought the river, and fell upon a boat with its one white sail gleaming like silver in the morning light; and in the boat were Sylvia and Lewis. His heart stirred; those two young creatures were doing their work of humanising him.