“I have been to see _It_. What a strange thing was _It_ when _It_ was alive, five hours ago! How has _It_ fared since? How fares _It_ now? How far has _It_ travelled in those five hours? Or is _It_ near at hand? When _It_ was living--when _It_ was Skelton--he was the most interesting man I ever knew. He had tremendous natural powers, and, had not fortune been too kind to him, he would have been known to the whole world by this time. He was weighted down with money; it was an octopus to him; it enabled him to do everything he ought not to have done, and it kept him from doing everything he ought to have done. It gave him a library that swamped him; it enabled him to hire other men to think for him, when he could have thought much better for himself; it put it in his power to follow his enemies relentlessly, and to punish them remorselessly. Ah, Conyers, old Aristotle himself said, ‘And rich in a high degree, and good in a high degree, a man cannot be.’ What a great good it is that few of us can spare the time, the thought, the money, for our revenges like Skelton! Most of us can only utter a curse and go about our business, but Skelton could pursue his revenge like a game of skill. Fate, however, defeats us all. Let man go his way; Fate undoes all the web he weaves so laboriously. Skelton spent twenty years trying to ruin Blair, and I believe he saved him. Nothing but some terrible catastrophe such as Skelton brought about would ever have cured Blair of that frenzy for the turf. “But everything with Skelton went according to the rule of contrary. Did you ever know before of a rich man who was disinterestedly loved? Yet, I tell you, that English girl that married him could have married a coronet. His money was a mere bagatelle to hers, and I believe as truly as I live that Skelton was disinterested in marrying that huge fortune. “And Sylvia Shapleigh--ah, that poor, pretty Sylvia!--she will never be merry any more; and you and I will never see those green-grey eyes of hers sparkle under her long lashes again. She was the most desperately in love with Skelton of any creature I ever saw. She didn’t mind the boy--she knew all about Lewis--she didn’t mind anything; she loved this rich man not for his money, but for himself. Did you ever hear of such a queer thing on this ridiculous old planet before? And Lewis--the boy of whom Skelton was at first ashamed--how proud he became of him! and how he craved that boy’s love! And nobody ever held out so long against Skelton as that black-eyed boy, the living image of him, his son from the crown of his head to the sole of the foot.