"Not at all, not at all. It was a foolish thing to do, but it seems he saw the man fall, and jumped in after him. And then, of course, he came to me for dry clothes." Mr Mannering was leaning forward in a trim attitude of attention, with his legs crossed, and his head a little bent. Mr Robert was fidgeting as usual under Mr Bennett's prose. "But who was drowned or dragged out, or what was the end of it?" he said hastily. "Bless the boy, he'll be himself again, if people believe him to be a hero. Who was it, Bennett?" "Ah, there is the extraordinary coincidence. It was such a fortunate thing that I went back with Anthony, because, although it was not the case for a formal deposition, I am ready to prove that he made a voluntary declaration." "He--who, who?" "The young man's name is David Stephens," said Mr Bennett in a tone of mild reproof. "He is a clerk at the post-office." "Young Stephens, the humpback preacher! Deposition?--Do you mean there had been a quarrel or anything?" "My dear Mr Robert, if you were to guess for a week you would never imagine what he had to say," said Mr Bennett, sitting back in his chair, and tapping one hand lightly with the other, too secure of his story to mind the little pokes and digs that were being administered. "I can assure you that in the whole course of my experience I have never met with anything I consider so strange. It just appeared the shadowy kind of accusation which is most difficult to rebut; and, although I was convinced that it might be explained in some perfectly honourable manner, it cannot be doubted that there were persons whom it did influence otherwise." Mr Mannering looked as courteously attentive as ever, Mr Robert had sunk into a despairing silence. "My most sanguine hopes hardly amounted to an actual acquittal, owing, as I have said, to the difficulty of proving anything in the matter--" "You are talking about Anthony Miles," cried Mr Robert, jumping up, and becoming very red in the face. "But what on earth had that young Stephens to do with it?" "Could you have imagined that he had in his hands this letter which made all the stir, that he gave it to a certain person, and that, it having been destroyed, Stephens was able to tell us where we might find one or two of its fragments, minute fragments I need not say, but sufficient for the purpose of identification, and such as under the circumstances may be considered conclusive." "Conclusive?--but of what? The existence of that letter is the very fact to which we have all been trying to shut our eyes," said Mr Mannering, dubiously joining his fingers.