Rivers started at the inquiry in astonishment.  He had never fancied that, in such matters, Munro had been so observant, and for a few moments gave no reply.  He evidently winced beneath the inquiry; but he soon recovered himself, however—­for, though at times exhibiting the passions of a demoniac, he was too much of a proficient not to be able, in the end, to command the coolness of the villain.

“I had thought to have said nothing on this subject, Munro, but there are few things which escape your observation.  In replying to you on this point, you will now have all the mystery explained of my rancorous pursuit of this boy.  That girl—­then a mere girl—­refused me, as perhaps you know; and when, heated with wine and irritated with rejection, I pressed the point rather too warmly, she treated me with contempt and withdrew from the apartment.  This youth is the favored, the successful rival.  Look upon this picture, Walter—­now, while the moon streams through the branches upon it—­and wonder not that it maddened, and still maddens me, to think that, for his smooth face and aristocratic airs of superiority, I was to be sacrificed and despised.  She was probably a year younger than himself; but I saw at the time, though both of them appeared unconscious of the fact, that she loved him then.  What with her rejection and scorn, coming at the same time with my election defeat, I am what I am.  These defeats were wormwood to my soul; and, if I am criminal, the parties concerned in them have been the cause of the crime.”

“A very consoling argument, if you could only prove it!”

“Very likely—­you are not alone.  The million would say with yourself.  But hear the case as I put it, and not as it is put by the majority.  Providence endowed me with a certain superiority of mind over my fellows.  I had capacities which they had not—­talents to which they did not aspire, and the possession of which they readily conceded to me.  These talents fitted me for certain stations in society, to which, as I had the talents pre-eminently for such stations, the inference is fair that Providence intended me for some such stations.  But I was denied my place.  Society, guilty of favoritism and prejudice, gave to others, not so well fitted as myself for its purposes or necessities, the station in all particulars designed for me.  I was denied my birthright, and rebelled.  Can society complain, when prostituting herself and depriving me of my rights, that I resisted her usurpation and denied her authority?  Shall she, doing wrong herself in the first instance, undertake to punish?  Surely not.  My rights were admitted—­my superior capacity:  but the people were rotten to the core; they had not even the virtue of truth to themselves.  They made their own governors of the vilest and the worst.  They willingly became slaves, and are punished in more ways than one.  They first create the tyrants—­for tyrants are the creatures of the people they sway, and never