back. "The next day," he says, "at four o'clock in the morning I
started again. I passed the village church. At the sight of the
place where I had celebrated my first communion I was filled with
remorse. I knelt down and prayed to God to make me good. But
some unknown force urged me to the crime. I started again--ten
times I turned back, but the more I hesitated the stronger was
the desire to go on." At length the faltering assassin arrived
at the house, and in his painful anxiety of mind shot a servant
instead of the intended victims.[8]


[8] Case of Porcher and Hardouin cited in Despine. "Psychologie
Naturelle."


In a town in Austria there dwelt a happy and contented married
couple, poor and hard-working. A charming young lady, a rich
relation and an orphan, comes to live with them. She brings to
their modest home wealth and comfort. But as time goes on, it is
likely that the young lady will fall in love and marry. What
then? Her hosts will have to return to their original poverty.
The idea of how to secure to himself the advantages of his young
kinswoman's fortune takes possession of the husband's mind. He
revolves all manner of means, and gradually murder presents
itself as the only way. The horrid suggestion fixes itself in
his mind, and at last he communicates it to his wife. At first
she resists, then yields to the temptation. The plan is
ingenious. The wife is to disappear to America and be given out
as dead. The husband will then marry his attractive kinswoman,
persuade her to make a will in his favour, poison her and, the