“Lewis Pryor is his heir,� answered Mrs. Blair.
“How do you know it?� cried Blair. “Did not Bulstrode tell you that he thought it would be very hard for Skelton to prove it?�
“But Mr. Bulstrode is not a man of very good judgment about those things. He felt sorry for me the night he told me. He was angry with Mr. Skelton; he says he thinks Lewis will be better off without the money than with it; and so, putting all those things together, he concluded that we would get it. But I know Richard Skelton well, and I know that he would not accept of his own happiness at the price of enriching us; and he adores that boy. You are deceiving yourself if you think one stiver of it will ever be ours.�
Blair looked at his wife with deep displeasure in his face.
“I don’t believe you want that money, and I know very well the reason why. You are afraid of money for me.�
Mrs. Blair did not deny it, but sat, in pale distress, looking into her husband’s face. They loved each other well, in spite of that estrangement, and Blair got up and went to her and took her hand.
“Elizabeth, I swear to you, all the animosity I feel towards Skelton arose first through the love I had for you. Had he not interfered with me when you and I were first lovers, Skelton and I should have been jolly good fellows together; but I’ve got into the habit of hating him, my dear, for your sake, and it’s not easy to leave off.�
This old, old flattery never failed with Elizabeth, nor did it fail now.
The whole county was agog in a week over Skelton’s affairs. The disposition of his fortune became more and more puzzling and interesting when it was perfectly well understood that the time for the solution of the mystery was near at hand. But Skelton himself and Sylvia Shapleigh knew, or thought they knew, just what would happen about it.
Skelton, who was a model lover, pressed for an early date for the marriage to come off, and the late autumn was named. This gave him time to work on Lewis. He took the boy into the library one day and told him the whole story of the coming marriage, laying especial stress on the fact that Deerchase would still be his home and Sylvia his friend. The great news pleased the boy, and Skelton fondly hoped that it had reconciled him; but before the interview was out Skelton saw it had not. Only, instead of being obstinate and stiff-necked, Lewis begged, with tears in his eyes, that Skelton would not make it public.