far in advance of their imagination.  But supposing we can adduce one act, undoubtedly actuated by evil intention on the part of Randolph—­one act in which his father certainly did not participate—­what follows next?  Why, that we revert at once to the view of the hasty reasoner, and conclude that all the other acts in the same relation were actuated by the same evil motive; and having reached that point, we shall be unable longer to resist the conclusion that those of them in which his father had a share might have sprung from a like motive in his mind also; nor should the mere obvious impossibility of such a condition of things have even the very least influence on us, as thinkers, in causing us to close our mind against its logical possibility.  I therefore make the inference, and pass on.

’Let us then see if we can by searching find out any absolutely certain deviation from right on the part of Randolph, in which we may be quite sure that his father was not an abettor.  At eight on the night of the murder it is dark; there has been some snow, but the fall has ceased—­how long before I know not, but so long that the interval becomes sufficiently appreciable to cause remark.  Now the party going round the house come on two tracks of feet meeting at an angle.  Of one track we are merely told that it was made by the small foot of a woman, and of it we know no more; of the other we learn that the feet were big and the boots clumsy, and, it is added, the marks were half obliterated by the snow.  Two things then are clear:  that the persons who made them came from different directions, and probably made them at different times.  That, alone, by the way, may be a sufficient answer to your question as to whether Cibras was in collusion with the “burglars.”  But how does Randolph behave with reference to these tracks?  Though he carries the lantern, he fails to perceive the first—­the woman’s—­the discovery of which is made by a lad; but the second, half hidden in the snow, he notices readily enough, and at once points it out.  He explains that burglars have been on the war-path.  But examine his horror of surprise when he hears that the window is closed; when he sees the woman’s bleeding fingers.  He cannot help exclaiming, “My God! what has happened now?” But why “now”?  The word cannot refer to his father’s death, for that he knew, or guessed, beforehand, having heard the shot.  Is it not rather the exclamation of a man whose schemes destiny has complicated?  Besides, he should have expected to find the window closed:  no one except himself, Lord Pharanx, and the workman, who was now dead, knew the secret of its construction; the burglars therefore, having entered and robbed the room, one of them, intending to go out, would press on the ledge, and the sash would fall on his hand with what result we know.  The others would then either break the glass and so escape; or pass through the house; or remain prisoners.