with tapestries. On the table were a small
flask and glass, with the green glimmer of a liqueur and a cup of
black coffee. He was clad in a quiet gray suit with a moderately
harmonious purple tie; but Fisher saw something about the turn of
his fair mustache and the lie of his flat hair--it suddenly revealed
that his name was Franz Werner.

"You are Mr. Horne Fisher," he said. "Won't you sit down?"

"No, thank you," replied Fisher. "I fear this is not a friendly
occasion, and I shall remain standing. Possibly you know that I am
already standing--standing for Parliament, in fact--"

"I am aware we are political opponents," replied Verner, raising his
eyebrows. "But I think it would be better if we fought in a sporting
spirit; in a spirit of English fair play."

"Much better," assented Fisher. "It would be much better if you
were English and very much better if you had ever played fair. But
what I've come to say can be said very shortly. I don't quite know
how we stand with the law about that old Hawker story, but my chief
object is to prevent England being entirely ruled by people like
you. So whatever the law would say, I will say no more if you will
retire from the election at once."

"You are evidently a lunatic," said Verner.

"My psychology may be a little abnormal," replied Horne Fisher, in a
rather hazy manner. "I am subject to dreams, especially day-dreams.
Sometimes what is happening to me grows vivid in a curious double
way, as if it had happened before. Have you ever had that mystical
feeling that things have happened before?"

"I hope you are a harmless lunatic," said Verner.

But Fisher was still staring in an absent fashion at the golden
gigantic figures and traceries of brown and red in the tapestries on
the walls; then he looked again at Verner and resumed: "I have a
feeling that this interview has happened before, here in this
tapestried room, and we are two ghosts revisiting a haunted chamber.
But it was Squire Hawker who sat where you sit and it was you who
stood where I stand." He paused a moment and then added, with
simplicity, "I suppose I am a blackmailer, too."

"If you are," said Sir Francis, "I promise you you shall go to
jail." But his face had a shade on it that looked like the
reflection of the green wine gleaming on the table. Horne Fisher
regarded him steadily and answered, quietly enough:

"Blackmailers do not always go to jail. Sometimes they go to
Parliament. But, though P