"
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.
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