It is impossible to imagine that such a person would commit an
assassination, or even countenance one, for any or all of the reasons
that present themselves. In our hearts, with or without clear proof, we
could hardly believe it of him. Earls' sons do not, in fact, go about
murdering people. Unless, then, we can so reason as to discover other
motives--strong, adequate, irresistible--and by "irresistible" I mean a
motive which must be _far_ stronger than even the love of life
itself--we should, I think, in fairness dismiss him from our mind.
'And yet it must be admitted that his conduct is not free of blame. He
contracts a sudden intimacy with the acknowledged culprit, whom he does
not seem to have known before. He meets her by night, corresponds with
her. Who and what is this woman? I think we could not be far wrong in
guessing some very old flame of Lord Pharanx's of _Theatre des
Varietes_ type, whom he has supported for years, and from whom, hearing
some story to her discredit, he threatens to withdraw his supplies.
However that be, Randolph writes to Cibras--a violent woman, a woman of
lawless passions--assuring her that in four or five days she will be
excluded from the will of his father; and in four or five days Cibras
plunges a knife into his father's bosom.
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