This nearly drove Mrs. Shapleigh crazy, and Mrs. Shapleigh, in turn, nearly drove Mr. Shapleigh crazy. Between the propriety and excellence of Mrs. Skelton’s dying and the abominable means she took to prevent Sylvia from marrying Skelton--for, of course, the whole scheme was levelled at Sylvia--Mrs. Shapleigh was at a loss whether to consider the dead woman as her best friend or her greatest enemy. Sylvia by that time had grown sensible. She had learned in that first ridiculous yet terrible experience the dangers of her splendid imagination and intense emotions, and resolved upon learning to govern both--and Sylvia had a good strong will of her own. She even smiled as she thought how tremendously she had concerned herself, at the time of Skelton’s marriage, about what really did not concern her in the least. Still Skelton did not come home. The old expectations of his coming intellectual achievements had by no means vanished. He had given such extraordinary promise! But there was time enough--he was not yet thirty. He was known to be studying at the German universities. He still kept up his interest in his Virginia affairs, and, although on the other side of the water, he even had a fine racing stable organised under the charge of Miles Lightfoot, who was a cross between a gentleman and a “leg.” Racing was the sport in those days, and the Campdown Jockey Club had just been started upon an imposing basis. Skelton became a liberal subscriber, and Miles Lightfoot was understood to have _carte blanche_ in the great affair of making Skelton’s stable the finest one in the State. Whatever Skelton did he must do better than anybody else, and, since his large access of fortune, money was less than ever an object to him. Skelton always heard with pleasure of his successes on the turf, and Miles Lightfoot found out by some occult means that his own excellent place and salary, from a professional point of view, depended upon Skelton’s horses always beating Jack Blair’s. For Skelton never forgot a friend or an enemy.