“Strictly on the defensive,” the baronet repeated, requiring silence by a gesture. “You must not be surprised therefore, if I—nay, let me speak!—if I also say a word on a point which touches me.” “I wouldn’t!” Wetherell growled in his deep voice; and for an instant he raised his huge face, and looked stolidly at the wall before him. But Sir Robert was not to be bidden. “I think otherwise,” he said. “Mr. Vaughan, the election to-morrow touches me very nearly—in more ways than one. The vote you have, you received at my hands and hold only as my heir. I take it for granted, therefore, that under the present circumstances, you will use it as I desire.” “Oh!” Vaughan said. And drawing himself up to his full height he passed his eyes slowly from one to the other with a singular smile. “Oh!” he repeated—and there was a world of meaning in his tone. “Am I to understand then——” “I have made myself quite clear,” Sir Robert cried, his manner betraying his agitation. “Am I to understand,” Vaughan persisted, “that the offer which you made me a few minutes back, the generous and handsome offer,” he continued with a faint note of irony in his voice, “was dependent on my conduct to-morrow? Am I to understand that?” “If you please to put it so,” Sir Robert replied, his voice quivering with the resentment he had long and patiently suppressed. “And if your own sense of honour does not dictate to you how to act.” “But do you put it so?” “Do you mean——” “I mean,” Vaughan said, “does the offer depend on the use I make of my vote to-morrow? That is the point, Sir Robert!” “No,” Wetherell muttered indistinctly. But again Sir Robert would not be bidden. “I will be frank,” he said haughtily. “And my answer is, yes! yes! For I do not conceive, Mr. Vaughan, that a gentleman would take so great a benefit, and refuse so slight a service! A service, too, which, quite apart from this offer, most men——” “Thank you,” Vaughan replied, interrupting him. “That is clear enough.” And he looked from one to the other with a smile of amusement; the smile of a man suddenly reinstated in his own opinion—and once more master of his company. “Now I understand,” he continued. “I see now why the offer which a few minutes ago seemed so premature, so strangely premature, was made this evening. To-morrow it had been made too late! My vote had been cast and I could no longer be—bribed!” “Bribed, sir?” cried Sir Robert, red with anger. “Yes, bribed, sir. But let me tell you,” Vaughan went on, allowing the bitterness which he had been feeling to appear, “let me tell you, Sir Robert, that if not only my future, but my present, if my all, were at stake—I should resent such an offer as an insult!” Sir Robert took a step towards the bell and stopped.