“Mrs. Abercrombie is such a wreck,” one would say on meeting her after a few years.  “I would hardly have known her; and she doesn’t look at all happy.”

“I wonder if the general drinks as hard as ever?” would in all probability be replied to this remark, followed by the response: 

“I was not aware that he was a hard drinker.  He doesn’t look like it.”

“No, you would not suspect so much; but I am sorry to say that he has very little control over his appetite.”

At which a stronger surprise would be expressed.

General Abercrombie was fifty years old, a large, handsome and agreeable man, and a favorite with his brother officers, who deeply regretted his weakness.  As an officer his drinking habits rarely interfered with his duty.  Somehow the discipline of the army had gained such a power over him as to hold him repressed and subordinate to its influence.  It was only when official restraints were off that the devil had power to enter in and fully possess him.

A year before the time of which we are writing General Abercrombie had been ordered to duty in the north-eastern department.  His headquarters were in the city where the characters we have introduced resided.  Official standing gave him access to some of the wealthiest and best circles in the city, and his accomplished wife soon became a favorite with all who were fortunate enough to come into close relations with her.  Among these was Mrs. Birtwell, the two ladies drawing toward each other with the magnetism of kindred spirits.

A short time before coming to the city General Abercrombie, after having in a fit of drunken insanity come near killing his wife, wholly abandoned the use of intoxicants of every kind.  He saw in this his only hope.  His efforts to drink guardedly and temperately had been fruitless.  The guard was off the moment a single glass of liquor passed his lips, and, he came under the influence of an aroused appetite against which resolution set itself feebly and in vain.

Up to the evening of this party at Mr. Birtwell’s General Abercrombie had kept himself free from wine, and people who knew nothing of his history wondered at his abstemiousness.  When invited to drink, he declined in a way that left no room for the invitation to be repeated.  He never went to private entertainments except in company with his wife, and then he rarely took any other lady to the supper-room.

The new hope born in the sad heart of Mrs. Abercrombie had grown stronger as the weeks and months went by.  Never for so long a time had the general stood firm.  It looked as, if he had indeed gained the mastery over an appetite which at one time seemed wholly to have enslaved him.