“What, sir?”
“That I obtained my seat by unfair means! And the truth being perfectly well known to that gentleman”—again he pointed to the Sergeant in a way which left Wathen anything but comfortable. “I am sure that he will tell you that the statement——”
“Statement?”
“Statement or imputation, or whatever you please to call it,” Vaughan answered, sticking to his point in spite of interruptions, “is absolutely unfounded—and false. And false! And, therefore, must be retracted.”
“Must, sir?”
“Yes, must!” Vaughan replied—he was no coward. “Must, if you call yourselves gentlemen. But first, Mr. Sergeant,” he continued, fixing Wathen with his eye, “I will ask you to tell these friends of yours that I did not turn my coat at Chippinge. And that there was nothing in my election which in any degree touched my honour.”
The Sergeant looked flurried. He was of those who love to wound, but do not love to fight. And at this moment he wished from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet, that he had held his tongue. But unluckily, whether the cloud upon Vaughan’s reputation had been his work or not, he had certainly said more than he liked to remember; and, worse still, had said some part of it within the last five minutes, in the hearing of those about him. To retract, therefore, was to dub himself a liar; and he sought refuge, the perspiration standing on his brow, in that half-truth which is at once worse than a lie—and safer.
“I must say, Mr. Vaughan,” he said, “that the—the circumstances in which you used the vote given to you by your cousin, and—and the way in which you turned against him after attending a dinner of his supporters——”
“Openly, fairly, and after warning, I turned against him,” Vaughan cried, enraged at the show of justice which the accusation wore. “And that, sir, in pursuance of opinions which I had publicly professed. More, I allowed myself to be elected only after I had once refused Lord Lansdowne’s offer of the seat! And after, only after, Sir Robert Vermuyden had so treated me that all ties were broken. Sergeant Wathen, I appeal to you again! Was that not so?”
“I know nothing of that,” Wathen answered, sullenly.