Sylvia, on getting a message from her father, tripped down to the stable lot, where the two men were talking. The morning was warm and bright, even for the bright October season, and Sylvia wore a white dress and a large black hat. She had a wild-rose bloom in her cheek, and was altogether uncommonly pretty that morning. Blair was usually very observant and appreciative of women’s looks, but no woman that lived could have taken his attention off from Alabaster at that moment. Old Tom stated the case, and then walked away, laughing. “You and Sylvia settle it between you,” he cried. “If she chooses to sell him I’ll take what you offered me. If not, she wouldn’t let me sell him for the whole of Newington plantation.” “I wouldn’t either, if he were my property,” answered Blair, with a smile upon his handsome ruddy face that had, however, quite a strange look upon it. “Now, Miss Sylvia, can’t you let me have him?” he asked, as soon as old Tom was out of the way. Sylvia did not at all take in Blair’s intense desire to own the horse. “Why, Mr. Blair,” she said pettishly, “_I_ want the horse. He is a splendid riding horse, and I have looked forward to having him for such a long time.” Blair threw up his hands in a kind of despair. What creatures women were! Could they ever be made to understand the great affairs of life? Sylvia, who was quick of apprehension, caught in a moment the look which revealed an unsuspected turn in Blair’s character. His expression was desperate. “But--but--do you _want_ him very much?” suddenly asked Sylvia. “Want him!” cried Blair. “Great God!” Sylvia looked at him in dumb amazement. Blair’s features were working--he seemed to be asking for something as dear to him as his own children. “I don’t think you know how much I want this horse,” he said, with furious entreaty in his voice and his eyes. “This horse is worth everything to me, and without him life itself is worth nothing to me, because I am undoubtedly ruined unless I can get a horse to beat Skelton’s Jaybird. Alabaster can do it. I don’t know of any other horse that can. It is not only that I may recoup what I have lost--for I tell you I’d risk my own soul almost on Alabaster’s coming under the wire first with Jaybird--but there is feud between Skelton and me, feud such as you never dreamed of. I hate him, and he hates me.”