“I’m dashed if I know,” cried Bulstrode, rumpling up his shock of grizzly, unkempt hair. “But that he’s got an object-- Lord, Mrs. Blair, did you ever know Richard Skelton to do anything without an object?” “It has been a good many years since I knew anything of Richard Skelton,” she said, with pretty hypocrisy; at which Bulstrode roared out his great, vulgar, good-natured “Haw! haw! haw!” “Mr. Blair called at Deerchase when Mr. Skelton returned, and Mr. Skelton has paid me one visit, when he stayed exactly twenty minutes.” But all the time her heart was beating painfully. She knew Skelton’s object--it was, to ruin her husband. Bulstrode kept up his haw-hawing. “You wouldn’t marry Skelton, ma’am, and you showed your sense. There are worse men than he in the world, but if I were a woman I’d rather marry the devil himself than Richard Skelton.” “But he got on very well with his first wife, didn’t he?” asked Mrs. Blair, with all a woman’s curiosity. “O Lord, yes! She worshipped the ground he trod on. It’s the most curious thing, the way human affairs always go contrary. Skelton, although he is a rich man, was disinterestedly loved, because his fortune was nothing to his wife’s--and he had no rank to give her. But she was an Honourable in her own right. And, stranger still, I believe he was disinterested in marrying her. I always said he did it to spite her family. She had a lot of toploftical relations--she was related to half the peerage and all the baronetage--and they got to hectoring her about Skelton’s attentions, when I do assure you, madam, I don’t think he had any notion of falling in love with her. They tried to hector Skelton. Great powers of heaven! You can just imagine how the scheme worked, or rather how it didn’t work!” Here Bulstrode winked portentously. “The lady was her own mistress and could control every stiver of her money, and one fine morning she walked off to church and married Skelton without any marriage settlement! When it was done and over, the great folks wanted to make friends with him, but Skelton wouldn’t have it at all. He held his own with the best of ’em. One secret of Skelton’s power is that he don’t give a damn for anybody. Skelton’s a gentleman, you know. Then the poor young woman was taken ill, and her relations got to bothering her with letters about what she was going to do with her money. Mrs. Skelton used to try and talk to Skelton about it--I was with him then--but he would get up and go out of the room when she mentioned the subject. He’s a very delicate-minded man where money is concerned. And then she sent for her lawyers, and they made her a will, madam, which she signed, after having made some alterations in it with her own hand. And such a will as it turned out to be! Lord, Lord, Lord!”