Mrs. Shapleigh insisted that Sylvia should play on the guitar for the bishop. Sylvia began to tune it, but two strings snapped in succession. Skelton then offered to string it for her, but then the new strings snapped. Sylvia shot him a grateful glance, as the guitar was laid away. Mrs. Shapleigh expressed to the bishop, and everybody else, her regret that the bishop couldn’t have heard Sylvia sing. When she said so to Bulstrode, he remarked in an audible growl: “Drat the bishop!” The reverend gentleman was luckily deaf to this, and Skelton immediately rose to go, with a wicked smile at Sylvia, who, in her way, seemed to lack for appreciation of her mother’s ecclesiastical idol quite as much as Bulstrode. When Skelton was back at Deerchase that night he thought Sylvia one of the most winning girls he had ever met. But then, he could not admire a charming girl as other men could. He was bound hand and foot. This idea threw him in one of his silent rages, and he walked the library floor for a long time, railing inwardly at Fate. CHAPTER XII. Skelton was naturally far from pleased at having to stultify himself with Lewis by allowing him the full liberty of the stables, when he had strictly forbidden it. But there was no help for it after having fallen into what he considered the clumsy trap set for him by Blair. He was at great trouble to explain the whole thing to Lewis, when he sent for the boy in the library, to talk it over, and Lewis, whose wit was nimble enough, understood in a moment. Boy-like, he was delighted. He saw himself, the cynosure of all eyes, coming in a winner by an impossible number of lengths, with the men hurrahing, the ladies waving their handkerchiefs, and Sylvia Shapleigh handing him a bouquet before all the crowd of people. He hoped Mrs. Blair would not be there, though, to see Hilary’s downfall. Skelton explained everything to him carefully, took him to the stables, and himself watched him every day when he exercised Jaybird around the half-mile track on the Deerchase land, back of the stables. Another reason why Skelton was not pleased at the notion of having Lewis in the race was that he was afraid the boy would acquire a fondness for the sport, and he talked to him very seriously upon the subject, and told him that this first experience would no doubt be his last of the kind. As it had been during the time Skelton was teaching him to manage the boat, the two were thrown together much, and Lewis took the same strange pleasure in Skelton’s company as before.