Danger; Or, Wounded in the House of a Friend

Struggling to his feet, General Abercrombie cursed his wife as he jerked her from the ground with a sudden force that came near dislocating her arm. She gave no word of remonstrance nor cry of pain or fear, but did all in her power to keep up with her husband as he drove on again with mad precipitation.

How they got home Mrs. Abercrombie hardly knew, but home they were at last and in their own room, the door closed and locked and the key withdrawn by her husband, out of whose manner all the wild passion had gone. His movements were quiet and his voice when he spoke low, but his wife knew by the gleam of his restless eyes that thought and purpose were active.

Their room was in the third story of a large boarding-house in a fashionable part of the city. The outlook was upon the street. The house was double, a wide hall running through the centre. There were four or five large rooms on this floor, all occupied. In the one adjoining theirs were a lady and gentleman who had been at Mr. and Mrs. Birtwell's party, and who drove up in a carriage just as the general and Mrs. Abercrombie, white with snow, came to the door. They entered together, the lady expressing surprise at their appearance, at which the general growled some incoherent sentences and strode away from them and up the stairs, Mrs. Abercrombie following close after him.

"There's something wrong, I'm afraid," said the gentleman, whose name was Craig, as he and his wife gained their own room. "They went in a carriage, I know. What can it mean?"

"I hope the general has not been drinking too much," remarked the wife.

"I'm afraid he has. He used to be very intemperate, I've heard, but reformed a year or two ago, A man with any weakness in this direction would be in danger at an entertainment such as Mr. and Mrs. Birtwell gave to-night."

"I saw the general taking wine with a lady," said Mrs. Craig.

"If he took one glass, he would hardly set that as a limit. It were much easier to abstain altogether; and we know that if a man over whom drink has once gained the mastery ventures upon the smallest indulgence of his appetite he is almost sure to give way and to fall again. It's a strange thing, and sad as strange."

"Hark!"

Mr. Craig turned quickly toward the door which when opened made a communication between their apartment and that of General and Mrs. Abercrombie. It was shut, and fastened on both sides, so that it could not be opened by the occupants, of either room.

A low but quickly-stifled cry had struck on the ears of Mr. and Mrs. Craig. They looked at each other with questioning glances for several moments, listening intently, but the cry was not repeated.

"I don't like that," said Mr. Craig. He spoke with concern.

"What can it mean?" asked his wife.

"Heaven knows!" he replied.

They sat silent and listening. A sharp click, which the ear of Mr. Craig detected as the sound made by the cocking of a pistol, struck upon the still air. He sprang to his feet and took a step or two toward the door leading into the hall, but his wife caught his arm and clung to it tightly.

"No, no! Wait! wait!" she cried, in a deep whisper, while her face grew-ashen pale. For some moments they stood with repressed breathing, every instant expecting to hear the loud report of a pistol. But the deep silence remained unbroken for nearly a minute; then a dull movement of feet was heard in the room, and the opening and shutting of a drawer.

"No, general, you will not do that," they heard Mrs. Abercrombie say, in a low, steady tone in which fear struggled with tenderness.

"Why will I not do it?" was sternly demanded.

They were standing near the door, so that their voices could be heard distinctly in the next room.

"Because you love me too well," was the sweet, quiet answer. The voice of Mrs. Abercrombie did not betray a single tremor.

All was hushed again. Then came another movement in the room, and the sound of a closing drawer. Mr. and Mrs. Craig were beginning to breathe more freely, when the noise as of some one springing suddenly upon another was heard, followed by a struggle and a choking cry. It continued so long that Mr. Craig ran out into the hall and knocked at the door of General Abercrombie's room. As he did so the noise of struggling ceased, and all grew still. The door was not opened to his summons, and after waiting for a little while he went back to his own room.

"This is dreadful," he said. "What can it mean? The general must be insane from drink. Something will have to be done. He may be strangling his poor wife at this very moment. I cannot bear it. I must break open the door."

Mr. Craig started toward the hall, but his wife seized hold of him and held him back.

"No, no, no!" she cried, in a low voice. "Let them alone. It may be her only chance of safety. Hark!"

The silence in General Abercrombie's room was again broken. A man's firm tread was on the floor and it could be heard passing clear across the apartment, then returning and then going from side to side. At length the sound of moving furniture was heard. It was as if a person were lifting a heavy wardrobe or bureau, and getting it with some difficulty from one part of the room to the other.

"What can he be doing?" questioned Mrs. Craig, with great alarm.

"He is going to barricade the door, most likely," replied her husband.

"Barricade the door? What for? Good heavens, Mr. Craig! He may have killed his wife. She may be lying in there dead at this very moment. Oh, it is fearful! Can nothing be done?"

"Nothing, that I know of, except to break into the room."

"Hadn't you better rouse some of the boarders, or call a waiter and send for the police?"

The voice of Mrs. Abercrombie was heard at this moment. It was calm and clear.

"Let me help you, general," she said.

The noise of moving furniture became instantly still. It seemed as if the madman had turned in surprise from his work and stood confronting his wife, but whether in wrath, or not it was impossible to conjecture. They might hear her fall to the floor, stricken down by her husband, or cry out in mortal agony at any moment. The suspense was dreadful.

"Do it! I am ready."

It was Mrs. Abercrombie speaking again, and in a calm, even voice. They heard once more and with curdling blood, the sharp click of a pistol-lock as the hammer was drawn back. They held their breaths in horror and suspense, not moving lest even the slightest sound they made should precipitate the impending tragedy.

"I have been a good and true wife to you always, and I shall remain so even unto death."

The deep pathos of her quiet voice brought tears to the eyes of Mr. and Mrs. Craig.

"If you are tired of me, I am ready to go. Look into my eyes. You see that I am not afraid."

It was still as death again. The clear, tender eyes that looked so steadily into those of General Abercrombie held him like a spell, and made his fingers so nerveless that they could not respond to the passion of the murderous fiend that possessed him. That was why the scared listeners did not hear the deadly report of the pistol he was holding within a few inches of his wife's head.

"Let me put it away. It isn't a nice thing to have in a lady's chamber. You know I can't bear the sight of a pistol, and you love me too well to give me the smallest pain or uneasiness. That's a dear, good husband."

They could almost see Mrs. Abercrombie take the deadly weapon from the general's hand. They heard her dress trailing across the room, and heard her open and shut and then lock a drawer. For some time afterward they could hear the low sound of voices, then all became silent again.

"Give me that pistol!" startled them not long afterward in a sudden wild outbreak of frenzied passion.

"What do you want with it?" they heard Mrs. Abercrombie ask. There was no sign of alarm in her tones.

"Give me that pistol, I say!" The general's voice was angry and imperious. "How dared you take, it out of my hand!"

"Oh, I thought you wished it put away because the sight of a pistol is unpleasant to me."

And they heard the dress trailing across the room again.

"Stop!" cried the general, in a commanding tone.

"Just as you please, general. You can have the pistol, if you want it," answered Mrs. Abercrombie, without the smallest tremor in her voice. "Shall I get it for you?"

"No!" He flung the word out angrily, giving it emphasis by an imprecation. Then followed a growl as if from an ill-natured beast, and they could hear his heavy tread across the floor.

"Oh, general!" came suddenly from the lips of Mrs. Abercrombie, in a surprised, frightened tone. Then followed the sound of a repressed struggle, of an effort to get free without making a noise or outcry, which continued for a considerable time, accompanied by a low muttering and panting as of a man in some desperate effort.

Mr. and Mrs. Craig stood with pale faces, irresolute and powerless to help, whatever might be the extremity of their neighbor. To attempt a forcible entry into the room was a doubtful expedient, and might be attended with instant fatal consequences. The muttering and panting ceased at length, and so did all signs of struggling and resistance. The madman had wrought his will, whatever that might be. Breathlessly they listened, but not a sound broke the deep silence. Minutes passed, but the stillness reigned.

"He may have killed her," whispered Mrs. Craig, with white lips. Her husband pressed his ear closely to the door.

"Do you hear anything?"

"Yes."

"What?"

They spoke in a low whisper.

"Put your ear against the door."

Mrs. Craig did so, and after a moment or two could hear a faint movement, as of something being pulled across the carpet. The sound was intermittent, now being very distinct and now ceasing altogether. The direction of the movement was toward that part of the room occupied by the bed. The listeners' strained sense of hearing was so acute that it was able to interpret the meaning of each varying sound. A body had been slowly dragged across the floor, and now, hushed and almost noiselessly as the work went on, they knew that the body was being lifted from the floor and placed upon the bed. For a little while all was quiet, but the movements soon began again, and were confined to the bed. Something was being done with the dead or unconscious body. What, it was impossible to make out or even guess. Mrs. Abercrombie might be lifeless, in a swoon or only feigning unconsciousness.

"It won't do to let this go on any longer," said Mr. Craig as he came back from the door at which he had been listening. "I must call some of the boarders and have a consultation."

He was turning to go out, when a sound as of a falling chair came from General Abercrombie's room, and caused him to stop and turn back, This was followed by the quick tread of heavy feet going up and down the chamber floor, and continuing without intermission for as much as five minutes. It stopped as suddenly as it had begun, and all was silent again. They knew that the general was standing close by the bed.

"My God!" in a tone full, of anguish and fear dropped from his lips. "Edith! Edith! oh, Edith!" he called in a low wail of distress. "Speak to me, Edith! Why don't you speak to me?"

They listened, but heard no answer. General Abercrombie called the name of his wife over and over again, and in terms of endearment, but for all Mr. and Mrs. Craig could tell she gave back no sign.

"O my God! what have I done?" they heard him say, the words followed by a deep groan.

"It is my time now;" and Mr. Craig ran out into the hall as he said this and knocked at the general's door. But no answer came. He knocked again, and louder than at first. After waiting for a short time he heard the key turn in the lock. The door was opened a few inches, and he saw through the aperture the haggard and almost ghastly face of General Abercrombie. His eyes were wild and distended.

"What do you want?" he demanded, impatiently.

"Is Mrs. Abercrombie sick? Can we do anything for you, general?" said Mr. Craig, uttering the sentences that came first to his tongue.

"No!" in angry rejection of the offered service. The door shut with a jar, and the key turned in the lock. Mr. Craig stood for a moment irresolute, and then went back to his wife. Nothing more was heard in the adjoining room. Though they listened for a long time, no voice nor sound of any kind came to their ears. The general had, to all appearance, thrown himself upon the bed and fallen asleep.

It was late on the next morning when Mr. and Mrs. Craig awoke. Their first thought was of their neighbors, General and Mrs. Abercrombie. The profoundest silence reigned in their apartments—a silence death-like and ominous.

"If he has murdered her!" said Mrs. Craig, shivering at the thought as she spoke.

"I hope not, but I shouldn't like to be the first one who goes into that room," replied her husband. Then, after a moment's reflection, he said:

"If anything has gone wrong in there, we must be on our guard and make no admissions. It won't do for us to let it be known that we heard the dreadful things going on there that we did, and yet gave no alarm. I'm not satisfied with myself, and can hardly expect others to excuse where I condemn."

CHAPTER XIV

WHEN Mr. and Mrs. Craig entered the breakfast-room, they saw, to their surprise, General Abercrombie and his wife sitting in their usual places. They bowed to each other, as was their custom on meeting at the table.

The face of Mrs. Abercrombie was pale and her features pinched. She had the appearance of one who had been ill and was just recovering, or of one who had endured exhausting pain of mind or body. She arose from the table soon after Mr. and, Mrs. Craig made their appearance, and retired with her husband from the room.

"The general is all out of sorts this morning," remarked a lady as soon as they were gone.

"And so is Mrs. Abercrombie," said another. "Dissipation does not agree with them. They were at the grand party given last night by Mr. and Mrs. Birtwell. You were among the guests, Mrs. Craig?"

The lady addressed bowed her affirmative.

"A perfect jam, I suppose?"

"Yes."

"Who were there? But I needn't ask. All the world and his wife, of course, little bugs and big bugs. How was the entertainment?"

"Splendid! I never saw such a profusion of everything."

"Fools make feasts for wise men to eat," snapped out the sharp voice of a lady whose vinegar face gave little promise of enjoyment of any kind. "Nobody thinks any more of them for it. Better have given the money to some charity. There's want and suffering enough about, Heaven knows."

"I don't imagine that the charity fund has suffered anything in consequence of Mr. Birtwell's costly entertainment," replied Mr. Craig. "If the money spent for last night's feast had not gone to the wine-merchant and the caterer, it would have remained as it was."

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.

"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."

"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.

How the wretched woman longed for yet dreaded the return of her husband! If he had been drinking again, as she feared, there, was before her a night of anguish and terror—a night which might have for her no awaking in the world. But she had learned to dread some things more than death.

Time wore on until it was past the hour for General Abercrombie's return, and yet there was no sign of his coming. At last the loud clang of the supper-bell ringing through the halls gave her a sudden start. She clasped her hands across her forehead, while a look of anguish convulsed her face, then held them tightly against her heart and groaned aloud.