The Highland monthly - National Library of Scotland

A Strange Revenge. 583
developed the manner and style of a jaunty easy going
youth, and found the role agreeable. Now that he had
brought a crisis upon himself, and for the first time realised
what it was to love a woman passionately, and not passively,
a power for the thoughtful consideration of matters had
risen above his flippancy and impulsiveness.
Could he trust the Professor ? Why not ? What could
be more noble than this gentleman's desire to reduce the
world's misery, than his anxiety not to promote his
daughter's happiness at the cost of that of another woman,
whom he knew nothing of beyond the fact that she was a
woman, and that she also loved ? These were sentiments
which did honour to the Professor and his daughter ; he
alone was the black-hearted villain of the play.
Still, an uneasy feeling would insinuate itself upon him^
and he neither could locate its cause nor define its meaning.
When this was the case, his thoughts would revert to the
mysterious love medicine the Professor had almost thrust
upon him. Was it within the bounds of possibility that
the old man was partially mad, and had a craze for poison-
ing people on the maniacal principle that a woman who is
jilted were better dead ?
The thought made great beads of sweat stand on
Richard's forehead. He sprang to his feet and paced the
room for a time till he argued away that terrible suggestion.
In all his interviews with the Professor he had found him
intelligent and kind-hearted ;
had he not written the laird a
polite note, in which he expressed a hope for future friend-
ship ? had he not rather discountenanced—both he and his
daughter, for humane reasons—the relationship he(Richard)
had urged upon them ? and what incentive to such a piece
of diabolical wickedness could a stranger have among
strangers? No, granted his sanity, which he could not
doubt, there was not, he concluded, anything about the
Professor to raise suspicions as to the honesty of his
motives.
Would he, then, administer the powder ? That was the
notwithstanding all this
nerve thrilling question ; and