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 under these attacks.  He haughtily repeated his denial, and refused to answer any more questions on the subject.

The local Tory paper rushed into the fray, and had presently collected a good deal of what it was pleased to call evidence on the matter, mainly gathered from London reporters.  The matter began to look serious.  Marsham appealed to Barrington to contradict the rumor publicly, as “absurd and untrue.”  But, unfortunately, Barrington, who was a man of quick and gusty temper, had been nettled by an incautious expression of Marsham’s with regard to the famous article in his Dunscombe speech—­“if I had had any intention whatever of dealing a dishonorable blow at my old friend and leader, I could have done it a good deal more effectively, I can assure you; I should not have put what I had to say in a form so confused and contradictory.”

This—­together with the general denial—­happened to reach Barrington, and it rankled.  When, therefore, Marsham appealed to him, he brusquely replied: 

“DEAR MR. MARSHAM,—­You know best what share you had in the Herald article.  You certainly did not write it.  But to my mind it very faithfully reproduced the gist of our conversation on a memorable evening.  And, moreover, I believe and still believe that you intended the reproduction.  Believe me, Yours faithfully, ERNEST BARRINGTON.”

To this Marsham returned a stiff answer, giving his own account of what had taken place, and regretting that even a keen journalist should have thought it consistent with his honor to make such injurious and unfair use of “my honest attempt to play the peacemaker” between the different factions of the party.