one another."

"Willingly!" Borrowdean said. "But your train?"

"Let my train go," Mannering answered. "There are some things I have to
say to you."

Borrowdean called a hansom. The two men drove off together.




CHAPTER VIII

THE MANNERING MYSTERY


Borrowdean was curter than usual, even abrupt. The calm geniality of his
manner had departed. He spoke in short, terse sentences, and he had the
air of a man struggling to subdue a fit of perfectly reasonable and
justifiable anger. It was a carefully cultivated pose. He even refrained
from his customary cigarette.

"Look here, Mannering," he said, "there are times when a few plain words
are worth an hour's conversation. Will you have them from me?"

"Yes!"

"This thing was started six months ago, soon after those two
bye-elections in Yorkshire. Even the most despondent of us then saw that