“There is something singular about that party at Mr. and Mrs. Birtwell’s, added Doctor Hillhouse, after a pause.  I hardly know what to make of it.”

“Singular in what respect?” asked the other.

The face of Doctor Hillhouse grew more serious: 

“You know Mr. Ridley, the lawyer?  He was in Congress a few years ago.”

“Yes.”

“He was very intemperate at one time, and fell so low that even his party rejected him.  He then reformed and came to this city, where he entered upon the practice of his profession, and has been for a year or two advancing rapidly.  I attended his wife a few days ago, and saw her yesterday afternoon, when she was continuing to do well.  There were some indications of excitement about her, though whether from mental or physical causes I could not tell, but nothing to awaken concern.  This morning I found her in a most critical condition.  Puerperal fever had set in, with evident extensive peritoneal involvement.  The case was malignant, all the abdominal viscera being more or less affected.  I learned from the nurse that Mr. Ridley was away all night, and that Mrs. Ridley, who was restless and feverish through the evening, became agitated and slightly delirious after twelve o’clock, talking about and calling for her husband, whom she imagined dying in the storm, that now raged with dreadful violence.  No help could be had all night; and when we saw her this morning, it was too late for medicine to control the fatal disease which was running its course with almost unprecedented rapidity.  She was dying when I saw her at half-past eleven this morning.  This case and that of Mrs. Voss were the ones that drew so largely on my time this morning, and helped to disturb me so much, and both were in consequence of Mr. Birtwell’s party.”

“They might have an indirect connection with the party,” returned Doctor Kline, “but can hardly be called legitimate consequences.”

“They are legitimate consequences of the free wine and brandy dispensed at Mr. Birtwell’s,” said Doctor Hillhouse.  “Tempted by its sparkle and flavor, Archie Voss, as pure and promising a young man as you will find in the city, was lured on until he had taken more than his brain would bear.  In this state he went out at midnight alone in a blinding storm and lost his way—­how or where is not yet known.  He may have been set upon and robbed and murdered in his helpless condition, or he may have fallen into a pit where he lies buried beneath the snow, or he may have wandered in his blind bewilderment to the river and gone down under its chilling waters.

“Mr. Ridley, with his old appetite not dead, but only half asleep and lying in wait for an opportunity, goes also to Mr. Birtwell’s, and the sparkle and flavor of wine and the invitations that are pressed upon him from all sides prove too much for his good resolutions.  He tastes and falls.  He goes in his right mind, and comes away so much intoxicated that he cannot find his way home.  How he reached there at last I do not know—­he must have been in some station-house until daylight; but when I saw him, his pitiable suffering and alarmed face made my heart ache.  He had killed his wife!  He, or the wine he found at Mr. Birtwell’s?  Which?”