The lady with the vinegar face said something about the Dives who have their good things here, adding, with a zest in her voice, that “Riches, thank God! can’t be taken over to the other side, and your nabobs will be no better off after they die than the commonest beggars.”

“That will depend on something more than the money-aspect of the case,” said Mr. Craig.  “And as to the cost of giving a feast, what would be extravagance in one might only be a liberal hospitality in another.  Cake and ice cream for my friends might be as lavish an expenditure for me as Mr. Birtwell’s banquet last night was for him, and as likely to set me among the beggars when I get over to the other side.”

“Then you don’t believe that God holds rich men to a strict account for the manner in which they spend the money he has placed in their hands?  Are they not his almoners?”

“No more than poor men, and not to be held to any stricter accountability,” was replied.  “Mr. Birtwell does not sin against the poor when he lavishes his hundreds, or it may be thousands, of dollars in the preparation of a feast for his friends any more than you do when you buy a box of French candies to eat alone in your room or share with your visitors, maybe not so much.”

There was a laugh at the expense of the vinegar-faced lady, who did not fail in a sharp retort which was more acid than convincing.  The conversation then went back to General Abercrombie and his wife.

“Didn’t she look dreadful?” remarked one of the company.

“And her manner toward the general was so singular.”

“In what respect?” asked Mrs. Craig.

“She looked at him so strangely, so anxious and scared-like.  I never knew him to be so silent.  He’s social and talkative, you know—­such good company.  But he hadn’t a word to say this morning.  Something has gone wrong between him and his wife.  I wonder what it can be?”

But Mr. and Mrs. Craig, who were not of the gossiping kind, were disposed to keep their own counsel.

“I thought I heard some unusual noises in their room last night after they came home from the party,” said a lady whose chamber was opposite theirs across the hall.  “They seemed to be moving furniture about, and twice I thought I heard a scream.  But then the storm was so high that one might easily have mistaken a wail of the wind for a cry of distress.”

“A cry of distress!  You didn’t imagine that the general was maltreating his wife?”

“I intimated nothing of the kind,” returned the lady.

“But what made you think about a cry of distress?”

“I merely said that I thought I heard a scream; and if you had been awake from twelve to one or two o’clock this morning, you would have thought the air full of wailing voices.  The storm chafed about the roof and chimneys in a dreadful way.  I never knew a wilder night.”

“You saw the general at the party?” said one, addressing Mr. Craig.