“I think everybody in the county gets a species of horse madness twice a year,” he said, “and it is contagious. I assure you, that beast of mine--Jaybird--takes up an unconscionable amount of my time and attention. And, after all, that black colt which you chose to call Alabaster may make me bite the dust.” Sylvia could not tell whether Skelton hid any real resentment under his careless manner or not, but an impulse seized upon her to tell him all about it. “You know, perhaps,” she said, looking him full in the eyes, “that Alabaster was mine, and I hated the idea of his being whipped and spurred as race horses are; and when papa told me that Mr. Blair wanted him, I quite made up my mind not to part with him. But Mr. Blair came over one morning, and I declare, I never saw such eagerness--” Sylvia paused. She was getting upon delicate ground; but Skelton helped her out: “Oh, yes; Blair is a maniac upon the subject of beating my horse. He is scarcely responsible. However, there are pleasanter things to talk about than horse racing. You have never honoured Deerchase yet with that visit you promised me, to look at my pictures.” “Because, whenever I ask papa or mamma to take me, they always say you are busy on your great book, and I must wait for an invitation.” “You shall wait no longer,” said Skelton courteously; “come to-morrow--come to-day.” As they parted with a half promise on Sylvia’s part about the visit, she cantered briskly down the lane while Skelton rode back slowly to Deerchase. Ah, that book! He had made apologies and excuses to himself for not writing it for fifteen years past. A desperate apprehension of failure haunted him. Suppose all this brilliant promise should come to naught! And it was his sole resource under any circumstances. He was too old, and he had tasted too many pleasures, to make pleasure an object with him any longer. Domestic life he was shut out from, unless he chose to pay a price even more preposterous for it than people imagined; for, although the county was not without information regarding Skelton’s affairs, there were some particulars, peculiarly galling to him, that only a few persons in the world knew. Skelton was the last man on earth to submit easily to any restrictions, but those laid upon him by the jealous fondness of the dead woman sometimes made him grind his teeth when he thought of them. Often he would rise from his bed in the middle of the night and walk the floor for hours, tormented with the sense of having been robbed of his personal liberty and of being a slave in the midst of all his power. For the late Mrs. Skelton, who married him from the purest infatuation, so bitterly resented the opposition of her family to her marriage with Skelton, that she determined, even in the event of his marrying again, that they at least should not profit by it. But in carrying out this fine scheme a woman and three lawyers managed to create a complication that