'And as for Alice,' he went on. 'All is fair in love.'
I made no reply, because at this point a great temptation assailed my soul.
You have heard how I learned many secrets of the women while I was abroad. Now, while we were in Providence Island I found a woman of the breed they call half caste—that is, half Indian and half Portuguese—living in what she called wedlock with an English sailor, who did impart to me a great secret of her own people. I obtained from her not only the knowledge of a most potent drug (known already to the Jesuits), but also a goodly quantity of the drug itself. This, with certain other discoveries and observations of my own, I was about to communicate to the College in Warwick Lane.
As for this drug, I verily believe it is the most potent medicine ever yet discovered. It is now some years since it was first brought over to Europe by the Jesuits, and is therefore called Pulvis Jesuiticus, and sometimes Peruvian Bark. When administered at such a stage of the fever as had now been reached by my unhappy cousin, it seldom fails to vivify the spirits, and so to act upon the nerves as to restore the sinking, and to call back to life a man almost moribund.
Remembering this, I lugged the packet out of my pocket and laid it on the table.
'Be of good cheer, Cousin,' I said; 'I have a drug which is strong enough, with the help of God, to make a dying man sit up again. Courage, then!'
When I had said these words my temptation fell upon me. It came in the guise of a voice which whispered in my ear.
'Should this man die,' it said, 'there will be freedom for Alice. She can then marry the man she loves. She will be restored to happiness. While he lives, she must still continue in misery, being cut off from love. Let him die therefore.'