.

"Sober as a judge!"

Mannering smiled.

"How often did you take him?" he asked.

"Not once! I didn't dare!"

Mannering, who had been in the act of helping himself to a whiskey and
soda, looked around with the decanter in his hand.

"I don't understand you," he said, bewildered. "You know very well that
the chances, so far as they can be reckoned up, are slightly in my
favour."

"They were!" Fardell answered. "Heaven knows what they are now."

Mannering was a little annoyed. It seemed to him that Fardell must have
been drinking.

"Do you mind explaining yourself?" he asked.

"I can do so," Fardell answered. "I must do so. But while I am about it
I want you to put on your hat and come with me."

Mannering laughed shortly.

"What, to-night?" he exclaimed. "No, thank you. Be reasonable, Fardell.
I've had my day's work, and I think I've earned a little rest. To be
frank with you, I don't like mysteries. If you've anything to say, out
with it."

"Right!" Richard Fardell answered. "I am going to ask you a question,
Mr. Mannering. Go back a good many years, as many years as you like.
Is there anything in your life as a younger man, say when you first
entered Parliament, which--if it were brought up against you now--might
be--embarrassing?"

Mannering did not answer for several moments. He was already pale and
tired, but he felt what little colour remained leave his face. Least of
all he had expected this. Even now--what could the man mean? What could
be known?

"I am not sure that I understand you," he said. "There is nothing that
could be known! I am sure of that."

"There is a person," Fardell said, slowly, "who has made extraordinary
statements. Our opponents have got hold of him. The substance of them is
this: He says that many years ago you were the lover of a married woman,
that you sold her husband worthless shares and ruined him, and that
finally--in a quarrel--he declares that he was an eye-witness of
this--that you killed him."

Mannering slowly subsided into his chair. His cheeks were blanched.
Richard Fardell watched him with feverish anxiety.

"It is a lie," Mannering declared. "There is no man living who can say
this."

"The man says," Fardell continued, stonily, "that his name is Parkins,
and that he was butler to Mr. Stephen Phillimore eleven years ago."

"Parkins is dead!" Mannering said, hoarsely. "He has been dead for many
years."

"He is living in Leeds to-day," Fardell answe