“Yes, a few times.  But there was a crowd in all the rooms, and the same people were not often thrown together.”

“Nothing unusual about him?  Hadn’t been drinking too much?”

“Not when I observed him.  But—­” Mr. Craig hesitated a moment, and then went on:  “But there’s one thing has a strange look.  They went in a carriage, I know, but walked home in all that dreadful storm.”

“Walked home!” Several pairs of eyes and hands were upraised.

“Yes; they came to the door, white with snow, just as we got home.”

“How strange!  What could it have meant?”

“It meant,” said one, “that their carriage disappointed them—­nothing else, of course.”

“That will hardly explain it.  Such disappointments rarely, if ever, occur,” was replied to this.

“Did you say anything to them, Mr. Craig?”

“My wife did, but received only a gruff response from the general.  Mrs. Abercrombie made no reply, but, went hastily after her husband.  There was something unusual in the manner of both.”

While this conversation was going on General Abercrombie and his wife stood in the hall, she trying, but in vain, to persuade him not to go out.  He said but little, answering her kindly, but with a marked decision of manner.  Mrs. Abercrombie went up slowly to their room after he left her, walking as one who carried a heavy load.  She looked ten years older than on the day previous.

No one saw her during the morning.  At dinner-time their places were vacant at the table.

“Where are the general and his wife?” was asked as time passed and they did not make their appearance.

No one had seen either of them since breakfast.

Mrs. Craig knew that Mrs. Abercrombie had not been out of her room all the morning, but she did not feel inclined to take part in the conversation, and so said nothing.

“I saw the general going into the Clarendon about two o’clock,” said a gentleman.  “He’s dining with some friend, most probably.”

“I hear,” remarked another, “that he acted rather strangely at Mr. Birtwell’s last night.”

Every ear pricked up at this.

“How?” “In what way?” “Tell us about it,” came in quick response to the speaker’s words.

“I didn’t get anything like a clear story.  But there was some trouble about his wife.”

“About his wife?” Faces looked eagerly down and across the table.

“What about his wife?” came from half a dozen lips.

“He thought some one too intimate with her, I believe.  A brother officer, if I am not mistaken.  Some old flame, perhaps.  But I couldn’t learn any of the particulars.”

“Ah!  That accounts for their singular conduct this morning.  Was there much of a row?” This came from a thin-visaged young man with eye-glasses and a sparse, whitish moustache.

“I didn’t say anything about a row,” was the rather sharp reply.  “I only said that I heard that the general had acted strangely, and that there had been some trouble about his wife.”