Then, Blair seemed not to be able to keep off the question of the races again, although no mention was made of the especial match between them. Elizabeth listened with an aching heart. What a trifle it was to Skelton, while to them it was the most tremendous event in the world. It might mean the turning of herself and Blair and her children out of house and home. But she gave no sign of this inward fear, speaking lightly, although she had a horrible feeling that Skelton knew how hollow their pretence was—that the money Blair had risked might have to be got by some occult means, for not another penny could be raised upon Newington. Presently Skelton rose and said good-by, Blair seeing him to the door and watching him as he stepped lightly into his curricle. Then Blair came back like a criminal to his wife.
But Elizabeth had no reproaches to make. She was fluent enough when her feelings were not deeply touched, but under the influence of profound emotion she became perfectly silent. She was inapt at reproaches too; but Blair would cheerfully have preferred even the extraordinary wiggings that Mrs. Shapleigh gave her husband to the still and heart-breaking reproof of Elizabeth’s despairing, wordless look. He walked about the room for a few moments, while Elizabeth, with her work dropping from her listless hand, sat in fixed sadness.
“By Jupiter, the horse must win!� he cried excitedly, after a moment. “For God’s sake, Elizabeth, don’t look at me in that way!�
Elizabeth made a desperate effort to rally.
“How can I accuse you,� she said, “when I, too, am a coward before Richard Skelton? I ought to say: ‘We are desperately poor and in debt—we can’t afford to risk anything, no matter how promising the chances are, because we have nothing to risk. We are living now upon our creditors.’ Instead of that, I sit by and smile and say I have no fear, and profess to be willing. I am the greatest coward in the world. One word, just now, and the whole thing would have been off—but I did not say it. No, I am as much to blame in this as you are.�
Skelton, driving home, concluded he would stop at Belfield. He was inwardly raging, as he always was at any slight upon Lewis Pryor. There was he, Mr. Skelton, of Deerchase, supposed to be the richest and most powerful man in the county, and yet he could not get a single family to recognise that boy—except at Belfield. Just as he was turning this over bitterly in his mind, he drove up to the door of the Belfield house. It was yet in the bright forenoon.
Both Mr. and Mrs. Shapleigh were at home. Skelton only stayed a few minutes, when, glancing out of the window, he saw Sylvia and Lewis Pryor sitting together in the little summerhouse on the bridge across the creek that separated the two plantations. Skelton rose.
“I see Miss Shapleigh on the bridge, and if you will excuse me I will say good-day to you and join her.�
Old Tom was excessively surprised.
“Why,� said he, “you are paying us a monstrous short visit! I thought you had come especially to see me.�