Pausing a little in the midst of our narrative, we may remark, that although it was generally supposed that this quarrel between Burke and Helen M'Dougal was got up for the purpose of confusion, yet it is not easy to see how any end could have been served by it; while the cutting of the woman's face had too much seriousness about it, even as a part of the terrible drama, to admit of the theory of an entire feint. The discrepancy may be reconciled by the introduction of another passion, jealousy, but this we cannot recognise, however true, except upon the assumption that M'Dougal had some reason in her own mind to lead her to the suspicion that Burke could be unfaithful to her with the very women he intended to slay. Nor, however aggravating this may be, where aggravation seemed impossible, it cannot be held as transcending the potentialities of a nature altogether alienated from God, especially when we keep in remembrance the true character of the passion thus imputed to Burke, as being so often utterly independent of the emotion of love, in which a moral sentiment forms a necessary element. This collision, as it were, between the desire that Burke should _kill_, and another, that he should not _possess_, would produce that irregularity, as we term it, in the plot which imparts to the acting the incongruity so difficult to the analyses of the time. But while it in some measure interferes with the unity so congenial to the romancist, and which we unreasonably look for in nature, because it is more consistent with art, it presents us with a picture of human nature never before witnessed out of the domain of extravagant fiction. At the time that Burke returned, after the locking out, Mary was lying across the bed, not having been able, even during the heat and noise of battle, to lift her head to satisfy the natural curiosity of her sex, if the curiosity itself was not altogether sopited. Burke knew the prolonged continuance of these states, proportioned as they were to the quantity of poison he had seen swallowed. So Mary is laid up as a reserve, ready for his assault at any time within the period of hours. He therefore turned his attention to the less easy subject, her companion, expressing still greater kindness to her, and pressing her by all manner of solicitation to lie down along with him in the bed from which, shortly before, his wife had so unexpectedly sprung, and who, even yet, with continued inconsistency, persisted in knocking at the door. So strong were these solicitations, and so affected was Brown with the drink she had taken, that, according to her own statement afterwards, she would have complied with his request if it had not been that she was terrified by the noise made by M'Dougal. Either supposition is possible, that he wished to gratify a purpose upon the one, and then execute his final intention upon her companion; or that he intended to immolate first the more difficult victim, and then take his own time with the other.