municated article in the
_Herald_, which had appeared on the morning of Ferrier's sudden death,
had been written by Oliver Marsham.

This statement was reported in the newspapers of the following morning,
and was at once denied by Marsham himself, in a brief letter to
the _Times_.

It was this letter which Lady Felton discussed hotly with Sir James
Chide on the day when Fanny Merton's misdemeanors also came up for
judgment.

"He says he didn't write it. Sir William declares--a mere quibble! He
has it from several people that Barrington was at Tallyn two days before
the article appeared, and that he spoke to one or two friends next day
of an 'important' conversation with Marsham, and of the first-hand
information he had got from it. Nobody was so likely as Oliver to have
that intimate knowledge of poor Mr. Ferrier's intentions and views.
William believes that he gave Barrington all the information in the
article, and wrote nothing himself, in order that he might be able
to deny it."

Sir James met these remarks with an impenetrable face. He neither
defended Marsham, nor did he join in Lady Felton's denunciations. But
that good lady, who though voluble was shrewd, told her husband
afterward that she was certain Sir James believed Marsham to be
responsible for the _Herald_ article.

A week later the subject was renewed at a very heated and disorderly
meeting at Dunscombe. A bookseller's assistant, well known as one of the
leading Socialists of the division, got up and in a suave mincing voice
accused Marsham of having--not written, but--"communicated" the _Herald_
article, and so dealt a treacherous blow at his old friend and
Parliamentary leader--a blow which had no doubt contributed to the
situation culminating in Mr. Ferrier's tragic death.

Marsham, very pale, sprang up at once, denied the charge, and fiercely
attacked the man who had made it. But there was something so venomous in
the manner of his denial, so undignified in the personalities with which
it was accompanied, that the meeting suddenly took offence. The attack,
instead of dying down, was renewed. Speaker after speaker got up and
heckled the candidate. Was Mr. Marsham aware that the editor of the
_Herald_ had been staying at Tallyn two days before the article
appeared? Was he also aware that his name had been freely mentioned, in
the _Herald_ office, in connection with the article?

Marsham in vain endeavored to regain sang-froid and composure unde