rresponds 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. It is a perfectly natural
sequence--though, of course, the _intention_ to produce by his words
the actual effect produced might have been absent; indeed, the letter
of Lord Pharanx himself, had it been received, would have tended to
produce that very effect; for it not only gives an excellent
opportunity for converting into action those evil thoughts which
Randolph (thoughtlessly or guiltily) has instilled, but it further
tends to rouse her passions by cutting off from her all hopes of
favour. If we presume, then, as is only natural, that there was no such
intention on the part of the earl, we _may_ make the same presumption
in the case of the son. Cibras, however, never receives the earl's
letter: on the morning of the same day she goes away to Bath, with the
double object, I suppose, of purchasing a weapon, and creating an
impression that she has left the country. How then does she know the
exact _locale_ of Lord Pharanx's room? It is in an unusual part of the
mansion, she is unacquainted with any of the servants, a stranger to
the district. Can it be possible that Randolph _had told her_? And here
again, even in that case, you must bear in mind that Lord Pharanx also
told her in his note, and you must recognise the possibility of the
absence of evil intention on the part of the son. Indeed, I may go
further and show you that in all but every instance in which his
actions are in themselves _outre_, suspicious, they are rendered, not
less _outre_, but less suspicious, by the fact that Lord Pharanx
himself knew of them, shared in them. There was the cruel barbing of
that balcony window; about it the crudest thinker would argue thus to
himself: "Randolph practically incites Maude Cibras to murder his
father on the 5th, and on the 6th he has that window so altered in
order that, should she act on his suggestion, she will be caught on
attempting to leave the room, while he himself, the actual c