“What was the trouble?” asked two or three anxious voices—­anxious for some racy scandal.

“Couldn’t learn any of the particulars, only that he took his wife from a gentleman’s arm in a rude kind of way, and left the party.”

“Oh! that accounts for their not coming home in a carriage,” broke in one of the listeners.

“Perhaps so.  But who said they didn’t ride home?”

“Mr. Craig.  He and Mrs. Craig saw them as they came to the door, covered with snow.  They were walking.”

“Oh, you were at the party, Mr. Craig?  Did you see or hear anything about this affair?”

“Nothing,” replied Mr. Craig.  “If there had been any trouble, I should most likely have heard something of it.”

“I had my information from a gentleman who was there,” said the other.

“I don’t question that,” replied Mr. Craig.  “A trifling incident but half understood will often give rise to exaggerated reports—­so exaggerated that but little of the original truth remains in them.  The general may have done something under the excitement of wine that gave color to the story now in circulation.  I think that very possible.  But I don’t believe the affair to be half so bad as represented.”

While this conversation was going on Mrs. Abercrombie sat alone in her room.  She had walked the floor restlessly as the time drew near for the general’s return, but after the hour went by, and there was no sign of his coming, all the life seemed to go out of her.  She was sitting now, or rather crouching down, in a large cushioned chair, her face white and still and her eyes fixed in a kind of frightened stare.

Time passed, but she remained so motionless that but for her wide-open eyes you would have thought her asleep or dead.

No one intruded upon her during the brief afternoon; and when darkness shut in, she was still sitting where she had dropped down nerveless from mental pain.  After it grew dark Mrs. Abercrombie arose, lighted the gas and drew the window curtains.  She then moved about the room putting things in order.  Next she changed her dress and gave some careful attention to her personal appearance.  The cold pallor which had been on her face all the afternoon gave way to a faint tinge of color, her eyes lost their stony fixedness and became restless and alert.  But the trouble did not go out of her face or eyes; it was only more active in expression, more eager and expectant.

After all the changes in her toilette had been made, Mrs. Abercrombie sat down again, waiting and listening.  It was the general’s usual time to come home from headquarters.  How would he come? or would he come at all?  These were the questions that agitated her soul.  The sad, troubled humiliating, suffering past, how its records of sorrow and shame and fear kept unrolling themselves before her eyes!  There was little if anything in these records to give hope or comfort.  Ah! how many times had he fallen from his high estate of manhood, each time sinking lower and lower, and each time recovering himself from the fall with greater difficulty than before!  He might never rise again.  The chances were largely against him.