been⁠—by a fatal slip, in the dark and after leaving the public house, on the steepish icy slope, a wrong path altogether, at the bottom of which he lay. The icy slope, the turn mistaken at night and in liquor, accounted for much⁠—practically, in the end and after the inquest and boundless chatter, for everything; but there had been matters in his life⁠—strange passages and perils, secret disorders, vices more than suspected⁠—that would have accounted for a good deal more.