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Danger; Or, Wounded in the House of a Friend

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Title: Danger; Or, Wounded in the House of a Friend

Author: T. S. Arthur


        
Release date: October 1, 2003 [eBook #4586]
                Most recently updated: November 8, 2025

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DANGER; OR, WOUNDED IN THE HOUSE OF A FRIEND ***




DANGER;

OR, WOUNDED IN THE HOUSE OF A FRIEND.

BY T. S. ARTHUR,

AUTHOR OF "THREE YEARS IN A MAN-TRAP," "CAST ADRIFT," "TEN NIGHTS IN
A BAR-ROOM," ETC., ETC.

PHILADELPHIA, CINCINNATI, CHICAGO, ST. LOUIS AND SAN FRANCISCO.

1875






PREFACE.





ALL efforts at eradicating evil must, to be successful, begin as
near the beginning as possible. It is easier to destroy a weed when
but an inch above the ground than after it has attained a rank
growth and set its hundred rootlets in the soil. Better if the evil
seed were not sown at all; better if the ground received only good
seed into its fertile bosom. How much richer and sweeter the
harvest!

Bars and drinking-saloons are, in reality, not so much the causes as
the effects of intemperance. The chief causes lie back of these, and
are to be found in our homes. Bars and drinking-saloons minister to,
stimulate and increase the appetite already formed, and give
accelerated speed to those whose feet have begun to move along the
road to ruin.

In "THREE YEARS IN A MAN-TRAP" the author of this volume uncovered
the terrible evils of the liquor traffic; in this, he goes deeper,
and unveils the more hidden sources of that widespread ruin which is
cursing our land. From the public licensed saloon, where liquor is
sold to men--not to boys, except in violation of law--he turns to
the private home saloon, where it is given away in unstinted measure
to guests of both sexes and of all ages, and seeks to show in a
series of swiftly-moving panoramic scenes the dreadful consequences
that flow therefrom.

This book is meant by the author to be a startling cry of "DANGER!"
Different from "THE MAN-TRAP," as dealing with another aspect of the
temperance question, its pictures are wholly unlike those presented
in that book, but none the less vivid or intense. It is given as an
argument against what is called the temperate use of liquor, and as
an exhibition of the fearful disasters that flow from our social
drinking customs. In making this argument and exhibition the author
has given his best effort to the work.






WOUNDED IN THE HOUSE OF A FRIEND.

CHAPTER I.





SNOW had been falling for more than three hours, the large flakes
dropping silently through the still air until the earth was covered
with an even carpet many inches in depth.

It was past midnight. The air, which had been so still, was growing
restless and beginning to whirl the snow into eddies and drive it
about in an angry kind of way, whistling around sharp corners and
rattling every loose sign and shutter upon which it could lay its
invisible hands.

In front of an elegant residence stood half a dozen carriages. The
glare of light from hall and windows and the sound of music and
dancing told of a festival within. The door opened, and a group of
young girls, wrapped in shawls and waterproofs, came out and ran,
merrily laughing, across the snow-covered pavement, and crowding
into one of the carriages, were driven off at a rapid speed.
Following them came a young man on whose lip and cheeks the downy
beard had scarcely thrown a shadow. The strong light of the
vestibule lamp fell upon a handsome face, but it wore an unnatural
flush.

There was an unsteadiness about his movements as he descended the
marble steps, and he grasped the iron railing like one in danger of
falling. A waiter who had followed him to the door stood looking at
him with a half-pitying, half-amused expression on his face as he
went off, staggering through the blinding drift.

The storm was one of the fiercest of the season, and the air since
midnight had become intensely cold. The snow fell no longer in soft
and filmy flakes, but in small hard pellets that cut like sand and
sifted in through every crack and crevice against which the wild
winds drove it.

The young man--boy, we might better say, for, he was only
nineteen--moved off in the very teeth of this storm, the small
granules of ice smiting him in the face and taking his breath. The
wind set itself against him with wide obstructing arms, and he
reeled, staggered and plunged forward or from side to side, in a
sort of blind desperation.

"Ugh!" he ejaculated, catching his breath and standing still as a
fierce blast struck him. Then, shaking himself like one trying to
cast aside an impediment, he moved forward with quicker steps, and
kept onward, for a distance of two or three blocks. Here, in
crossing a street, his foot struck against some obstruction which
the snow had concealed, and he fell with his face downward. It took
some time for him to struggle to his feet again, and then he seemed
to be in a state of complete bewilderment, for he started along one
street, going for a short distance, and then crossing back and going
in an opposite direction. He was in no condition to get right after
once going wrong. With every few steps he would stop and look up and
down the street and at the houses on each side vainly trying to make
out his locality.

"Police!" he cried two or three times; but the faint, alarmed call
reached no ear of nightly guardian. Then, with a shiver as the storm
swept down upon him more angrily, he started forward again, going he
knew not whither.

The cold benumbed him; the snow choked and blinded him; fear and
anxiety, so far as he was capable of feeling them, bewildered and
oppressed him. A helmless ship in storm and darkness was in no more
pitiable condition than this poor lad.

On, on he went, falling sometimes, but struggling to his feet again
and blindly moving forward. All at once he came out from the narrow
rows of houses and stood on the edge of what seemed a great white
field that stretched away level as a floor. Onward a few paces, and
then--Alas for the waiting mother at home! She did not hear the cry
of terror that cut the stormy air and lost itself in the louder
shriek of the tempest as her son went over the treacherous line of
snow and dropped, with a quick plunge, into the river, sinking
instantly out of sight, for the tide was up and the ice broken and
drifting close to the water's edge.






CHAPTER II.





"COME, Fanny," said Mr. Wilmer Voss, speaking to his wife, "you must
get to bed. It is past twelve o'clock, and you cannot bear this loss
of rest and sleep. It may throw you all back again."

The woman addressed was sitting in a large easychair with a shawl
drawn closely about her person. She had the pale, shrunken face and
large, bright eyes of a confirmed invalid. Once very beautiful, she
yet retained a sweetness of expression which gave a tenderness and
charm to every wasted feature. You saw at a glance the cultured
woman and the patient sufferer.

As her husband spoke a fierce blast of wind drove the fine sand-like
snow against the windows, and then went shrieking and roaring away
over housetops, gables and chimneys.

"Oh what a dreadful night!" said the lady, leaning forward in her
chair and listening to the wild wail of the storm, while a look of
anxiety, mingled with dread, swept across her face. "If Archie were
only at home!"

"Don't trouble yourself about Archie. He'll be here soon. You are
not yourself to-night, Fanny."

"Perhaps not; but I can't help it. I feel such an awful weight
here;" and Mrs. Voss drew her hands against her bosom.

"All nervous," said her husband. "Come! You must go to bed."

"It will be of no use, Wilmer," returned the lady. "I will be worse
in bed than sitting up. You don't know what a strange feeling has
come over me. Oh, Archie, if you were only at home! Hark! What was
that?"

The pale face grew paler as Mrs. Voss bent forward in a listening
attitude.

"Only the wind," answered her husband, betraying some impatience. "A
thousand strange sounds are on the air in a night like this. You
must compose yourself, Fanny, or the worst consequences may follow."

"It's impossible, husband. I cannot rest until I have my son safe
and sound at home again. Dear, dear boy!"

Mr. Voss urged no further. The shadow of fear which had come down
upon his wife began to creep over his heart and fill it with a vague
concern. And now a thought flashed into his mind that he would not
have uttered for the world; but from that moment peace fled, and
anxiety for his son grew into alarm as the time wore on and the boy
did not come home.

"Oh, my husband," cried Mrs. Voss, starting from her chair, and
clasping her hands as she threw them upward, "I cannot bear this
much longer. Hark! That was his voice! _'Mother!' 'Mother!'_ Don't
you hear it?"

Her face was white as the snow without, her eyes wild and eager, her
lips apart, her head bent forward.

A shuddering chill crept along the nerves of Mr. Voss.

"Go, go quickly! Run! He may have fallen at the door!"

Ere the last sentence was finished Mr. Voss was halfway down stairs.
A blinding dash of snow came swirling into his face as he opened the
street door. It was some moments before he could see with any
distinctness. No human form was visible, and the lamp just in front
of his house shone down upon a trackless bed of snow many inches in
depth. No, Archie was not there. The cry had come to the mother's
inward ear in the moment when her boy went plunging down into the
engulfing river and heart and thought turned in his mortal agony to
the one nearest and dearest in all the earth.

When Mr. Voss came back into the house after his fruitless errand,
he found his wife standing in the hall, only a few feet back from
the vestibule, her face whiter, if that were possible, and her eyes
wilder than before. Catching her in his arms, he ran with her up
stairs, but before he had reached their chamber her light form lay
nerveless and unconscious against his breast.

Doctor Hillhouse, the old family physician, called up in the middle
of that stormy night, hesitated to obey the summons, and sent his
assistant with word that he would be round early in the morning if
needed. Doctor Angier, the assistant, was a young physician of fine
ability and great promise. Handsome in person, agreeable in manner
and thoroughly in love with his profession, he was rapidly coming
into favor with many of the old doctor's patients, the larger
portion of whom belonged to wealthy and fashionable circles. Himself
a member of one of the older families, and connected, both on his
father's and mother's side, with eminent personages as well in his
native city as in the State, Doctor Angier was naturally drawn into
social life, which, spite of his increasing professional duties, he
found time to enjoy.

It was past two o'clock when Doctor Angier made his appearance, his
garments white with snow and his dark beard crusted with tiny
icicles. He found Mrs. Voss lying in swoon so deep that, but for the
faintest perceptible heart-beat, he would have thought her dead.
Watching the young physician closely as he stood by the bedside of
his wife, Mr. Voss was quick to perceive something unusual in his
manner. The professional poise and coolness for which he was noted
were gone, and he showed a degree of excitement and uncertainty that
alarmed the anxious husband. What was its meaning? Did it indicate
apprehension for the condition of his patient, or--something else? A
closer look into the young physician's face sent a flash of
suspicion through the mind of Mr. Voss, which was more than
confirmed a moment afterward as the stale odor of wine floated to
his nostrils.

"Were you at Mr. Birtwell's to-night?" There was a thrill of anxious
suspense in the tones of Mr. Voss as he grasped the physician's arm
and looked keenly at him.

"I was," replied Doctor Angier.

"Did you see my son there?"

"Yes, sir."

"At what time did you leave?"

"Less than an hour ago. I had not retired when your summons came."

"Was Archie there when you left?"

"No, I think not."

"Are you sure about it?"

"Yes, very sure. I remember now, quite distinctly, seeing him come
down from the dressing-room with his hat in his hand and go through
the hall toward the street door."

"How long ago was that?"

"About an hour and a half; perhaps longer."

A groan that could not be repressed broke from the father's lips.

"Isn't he at home?" asked the young physician, turning round quickly
from the bed and betraying a sudden concern.

"No; and I am exceedingly anxious about him." The eyes of Mr. Voss
were fixed intently on Doctor Angler, and he was reading every
varying expression of his countenance.

"Doctor," he said, laying his hand on the physician's arm and
speaking huskily, "I want you to answer me truly. Had he taken much
wine?"

It was some moments before Doctor Angier replied:

"On such occasions most people take wine freely. It flows like
water, you know. I don't think your son indulged more than any one
else; indeed, not half so much as some young men I saw there."

Mr. Voss felt that there was evasion in the answer.

"Archie is young, and not used to wine. A single glass would be more
to him than half a dozen to older men who drink habitually. Did you
see him take wine often?"

"He was in the supper-room for a considerable time. When I left it,
I saw him in the midst of a group of young men and girls, all with
glasses of champagne in their hands."

"How long was this before you saw him go away?"

"Half an hour, perhaps," replied the doctor.

"Did he go out alone?"

"I believe so."

Mr. Voss questioned no further, and Doctor Angler, who now
understood better the meaning of his patient's condition, set
himself to the work of restoring her to consciousness. He did not
find the task easy. It was many hours before the almost stilled
pulses began beating again with a perceptible stroke, and the quiet
chest to give signs of normal respiration. Happily for the poor
mother, thought and feeling were yet bound.

Long before this the police had been aroused and every effort made
to discover a trace of the young man after he left the house of Mr.
Birtwell, but without effect. The snow had continued falling until
after five o'clock, when the storm ceased and the sky cleared, the
wind blowing from the north and the temperature falling to within a
few degrees of zero.

A faint hope lingered with Mr. Voss--the hope that Archie had gone
home with some friend. But as the morning wore on and he did not
make his appearance this hope began to fade away, and died before
many hours. Nearly every male guest at Mrs. Birtwell's party was
seen and questioned during the day, but not one of them had seen
Archie after he left the house. A waiter who was questioned said
that he remembered seeing him:

"I watched him go down the steps and go off alone, and the wind
seemed as if it would blow him away. He wasn't just himself, sir,
I'm afraid."

If a knife had cut down into the father's quivering flesh, the pain
would have been as nothing to that inflicted by this last sentence.
It only confirmed his worst fears.

The afternoon papers contained a notice of the fact that a young
gentleman who had gone away from a fashionable party at a late hour
on the night before had not been heard of by his friends, who were
anxious and distressed about him. Foul play was hinted at, as the
young man wore a valuable diamond pin and had a costly gold watch in
his pocket. On the morning afterward advertisements appeared
offering a large reward for any information that would lead to the
discovery of the young man, living or dead. They were accompanied by
minute descriptions of his person and dress. But there came no
response. Days and weeks passed; and though the advertisements were
repeated and newspapers called public attention to the matter, not a
single clue was found.

A young man, with the kisses of his mother sweet on his pure lips,
had left her for an evening's social enjoyment at the house of one
of her closest and dearest friends, and she never looked upon his
face again. He had entered the house of that friend with a clear
head and steady nerves, and he had gone out at midnight bewildered
with the wine that had been poured without stint to her hundred
guests, young and old. How it had fared with him the reader knows
too well.






CHAPTER III.





"HEAVENS and earth! Why doesn't some one go to the door?" exclaimed
Mr. Spencer Birtwell, rousing himself from a heavy sleep as the bell
was rung for the third time, and now with four or five vigorous and
rapid jerks, each of which caused the handle of the bell to strike
with the noise of a hammer.

The gray dawn was just breaking.

"There it is again! Good heavens! What does it mean?" and Mr.
Birtwell, now fairly awake, started up in bed and sat listening.
Scarcely a moment intervened before the bell was pulled again, and
this time continuously for a dozen times. Springing from the bed,
Mr. Birtwell threw open a window, and looking out, saw two policemen
at the door.

"What's wanted?" he called down to them.

"Was there a young man here last night named Voss?" inquired one of
the men.

"What about him?" asked Mr. Birtwell.

"He hasn't been home, and his friends are alarmed. Do you know where
he is?"

"Wait, returned Mr. Birtwell; and shutting down the window, he
dressed himself hurriedly.

"What is it?" asked his wife, who had been awakened from a heavy
slumber by the noise at the window.

"Archie Voss didn't get home last night."

"What?" and Mrs. Birtwell started out of bed.

"There are two policemen at the door."

"Policemen!"

"Yes; making a grand row for nothing, as if young men never stayed
away from home. I must go down and see them. Go back into bed again,
Margaret. You'll take your death o' cold. There's nothing to be
alarmed about. He'll come up all right."

But Mrs. Birtwell did not return to her bed. With warm wrapper
thrown about her person, she stood at the head of the stairway while
her husband went down to admit the policemen. All that could be
learned from them was that Archie Voss had not come home from the
party, and that his friends were greatly alarmed about him. Mr.
Birtwell had no information to give. The young man had been at his
house, and had gone away some time during the night, but precisely
at what hour he could not tell.

"You noticed him through the evening?" said one of the policemen.

"Oh yes, certainly. We know Archie very well. He's always been
intimate at our house."

"Did he take wine freely?"

An indignant denial leaped to Mr. Birtwell's tongue, but the words
died unspoken, for the image of Archie, with flushed face and eyes
too bright for sober health, holding in his hand a glass of
sparkling champagne, came vividly before him.

"Not more freely than other young men," he replied. "Why do you
ask?"

"There are two theories of his absence," said the policeman. "One is
that he has been set upon in the street, robbed and murdered, and
the other that, stupefied and bewildered by drink, he lost himself
in the storm, and lies somewhere frozen to death and hidden under
the snow."

A cry of pain broke from the lips of Mrs. Birtwell, and she came
hurrying down stairs. Too well did she remember the condition of
Archie when she last saw him--Archie, the only son of her oldest and
dearest friend, the friend she had known and loved since girlhood.
He was not fit to go out alone in that cold and stormy night; and a
guilty sense of responsibility smote upon her heart and set aside
all excuses.

"What about his mother?" she asked, anxiously. "How is she bearing
this dreadful suspense?"

"I can't just say, ma'am," was answered, "but I think they've had
the doctor with her all night--that is, all the last part of the
night. She's lying in a faint, I believe."

"Oh, it will kill her! Poor Frances! Poor Frances!" wailed out Mrs.
Birtwell, wringing her hands and beginning to cry bitterly.

"The police have been on the lookout for the last two or three
hours, but can't find any trace of him," said the officer.

"Oh, he'll turn up all right," broke in Mr. Birtwell, with a
confident tone. "It's only a scare. Gone home with some young
friend, as like as not. Young fellows in their teens don't get lost
in the snow, particularly in the streets of a great city, and
footpads generally know their game before bringing it down. I'm
sorry for poor Mrs. Voss; she isn't strong enough to bear such a
shock. But it will all come right; I don't feel a bit concerned."

But for all that he did feel deeply concerned. The policemen went
away, and Mr. and Mrs. Birtwell sat down by an open grate in which
the fire still burned.

"Don't let it distress you so, Margaret," said the former, trying to
comfort his wife. "There's nothing to fear for Archie. Nobody ever
heard of a man getting lost in a city snow-storm. If he'd been out
on a prairie, the case would have been different, but in the streets
of the city! The thing's preposterous, Margaret."

"Oh, if he'd only gone away as he came, I wouldn't feel so awfully
about it," returned Mrs. Birtwell. "That's what cuts me to the
heart. To think that he came to my house sober and went away--"

She caught back from her tongue the word she would have spoken, and
shivered.

"Nothing of the kind, Margaret, nothing of the kind," said her
husband, quickly. "A little gay--that was all. Just what is seen at
parties every night. Archie hasn't much head, and a single glass of
champagne is enough to set it buzzing. But it's soon over. The
effervescence goes off in a little while, and the head comes clear
again."

Mrs. Birtwell did not reply. Her eyes were cast down and her face
deeply distressed.

"If anything has happened to Archie," she said, after a long
silence, "I shall never have a moment's peace as long as I live."

"Nonsense, Margaret! Suppose something has happened to him? We are
not responsible. It's his own fault if he took away more wine than
he was able to carry." Mr. Birtwell spoke with slight irritation.

"If he hadn't found the wine here, he could not have carried it
away," replied his wife.

"How wildly you talk, Margaret!" exclaimed Mr. Birtwell, with
increased irritation.

"We won't discuss the matter," said his wife. "It would be useless,
agreement being, I fear, out of the question; but it is very certain
that we cannot escape responsibility in this or anything else we may
do, and so long as these words of Holy Writ stand, _'Woe unto him
that giveth his neighbor drink, that putteth the bottle to him and
maketh him drunken'_, we may well have serious doubts in regard to
the right and wrong of these fashionable entertainments, at which
wine and spirits are made free to all of both sexes, young and old."

Mr. Birtwell started to his feet and walked the floor with
considerable excitement.

"If _we_ had a son just coming to manhood--and I sometimes thank God
that we have not--would you feel wholly at ease about him, wholly
satisfied that he was in no danger in the houses of your friends?
May not a young man as readily acquire a taste for liquors in a
gentleman's dining-room as in a drinking-saloon--nay, more readily,
if in the former the wine is free and bright eyes and laughing lips
press him with invitations?"

Mrs. Birtwell's voice had gained a steadiness and force that made it
very impressive. Her husband continued to walk the floor but with
slower steps.

"I saw things last night that troubled me," she went on. "There is
no disguising the fact that most of the young men who come to these
large parties spend a great deal too much time in the supper-room,
and drink a great deal more than is good for them. Archie Voss was
not the only one who did this last evening. I watched another young
man very closely, and am sorry to say that he left our house in a
condition in which no mother waiting at home could receive her son
without sorrow and shame."

"Who was that?" asked Mr. Birtwell, turning quickly upon his wife.
He had detected more than a common concern in her voice.

"Ellis," she replied. Her manner was very grave.

"You must be mistaken about that," said Mr. Birtwell, evidently
disturbed at this communication.

"I wish to Heaven that I were! But the fact was too apparent.
Blanche saw it, and tried to get him out of the supper-room. He
acted in the silliest kind of a way, and mortified her dreadfully,
poor child!"

"Such things will happen sometimes," said Mr. Birtwell. "Young men
like Ellis don't always know how much they can bear." His voice was
in a lower key and a little husky.

"It happens too often with Ellis," replied his wife, "and I'm
beginning to feel greatly troubled about it."

"Has it happened before?"

"Yes; at Mrs. Gleason's, only last week. He was loud and boisterous
in the supper-room--so much so that I heard a lady speak of his
conduct as disgraceful."

"That will never do," exclaimed Mr. Birtwell, betraying much
excitement. "He will have to change all this or give up Blanche. I
don't care what his family is if he isn't all right himself."

"It is easier to get into trouble than out of it," was replied.
"Things have gone too far between them."

"I don't believe it. Blanche will never throw herself away on a man
of bad habits."

"No; I do not think she will. But there may be, in her view, a very
great distance between an occasional glass of wine too much at an
evening party and confirmed bad habits. We must not hope to make her
see with our eyes, nor to take our judgment of a case in which her
heart is concerned. Love is full of excuses and full of faith. If
Ellis Whitford should, unhappily, be overcome by this accursed
appetite for drink which is destroying so many of our most promising
young men, there is trouble ahead for her and for us."

"Something must be done about it. We cannot let this thing go on,"
said Mr. Birtwell, in a kind of helpless passion. "A drunkard is a
beast. Our Blanche tied to a beast! Ugh! Ellis must be talked to. I
shall see him myself. If he gets offended, I cannot help it. There's
too much at stake--too much, too much!"

"Talking never does much in these cases," returned Mrs. Birtwell,
gloomily. "Ellis would be hurt and offended."

"So far so good. He'd be on guard at the next party."

"Perhaps so. But what hope is there for a young man in any danger of
acquiring a love of liquor as things now are in our best society? He
cannot always be on guard. Wine is poured for him everywhere. He may
go unharmed in his daily walks through the city though thousands of
drinking-saloons crowd its busy streets. They may hold out their
enticements for him in vain. But he is too weak to refuse the
tempting glass when a fair hostess offers it, or when, in the midst
of a gay company wine is in every hand and at every lip. One glass
taken, and caution and restraint are too often forgotten. He drinks
with this one and that one, until his clear head is gone and
appetite, like a watchful spider, throws another cord of its fatal
web around him."

"I don't see what we are to do about it," said Mr. Birtwell. "If men
can't control themselves--" He did not finish the sentence.

"We can at least refrain from putting temptation in their way,"
answered his wife.

"How?"

"We can refuse to turn our houses into drinking-saloons," replied
Mrs. Birtwell, voice and manner becoming excited and intense.

"Margaret, Margaret, you are losing yourself," said the astonished
husband.

"No; I speak the words of truth and soberness," she answered, her
face rising in color and her eyes brightening. "What great
difference is there between a drinking-saloon, where liquor is sold,
and a gentleman's dining-room, where it is given away? The harm is
great in both--greatest, I fear, in the latter, where the weak and
unguarded are allured and their tastes corrupted. There is a ban on
the drinking-saloon. Society warns young men not to enter its
tempting doors. It is called the way of death and hell. What makes
it accursed and our home saloon harmless? It is all wrong, Mr.
Birtwell--all wrong, wrong, wrong! and to-day we are tasting some of
the fruit, the bitterness of which, I fear, will be in our mouths so
long as we both shall live."

Mrs. Birtwell broke down, and sinking back in her chair, covered her
face with her hands.

"I must go to Frances," she said, rising after a few moments.

"Not now, Margaret," interposed her husband. "Wait for a while.
Archie is neither murdered nor frozen to death; you may take my word
for that. Wait until the morning advances, and he has time to put in
an appearance, as they say. Henry can go round after breakfast and
make inquiry about him. If he is still absent, then you might call
and see Mrs. Voss. At present the snow lies inches deep and unbroken
on the street, and you cannot possibly go out."

Mrs. Birtwell sat down again, her countenance more distressed.

"Oh, if it hadn't happened in our house!" she said. "If this awful
thing didn't lie at our door!"

"Good Heavens, Margaret! why will you take on so? Any one hearing
you talk might think us guilty of murder, or some other dreadful
crime. Even if the worst fears are realized, no blame can lie with
us. Parties are given every night, and young men, and old men too,
go home from them with lighter heads than when they came. No one is
compelled to drink more than is good for him. If he takes too much,
the sin lies at his own door."

"If you talked for ever, Mr. Birtwell," was answered "nothing you
might say could possibly change my feelings or sentiments. I know we
are responsible both to God and to society for the stumbling-blocks
we set in the way of others. For a long time, as you know, I have
felt this in regard to our social wine-drinking customs; and if I
could have had my way, there would have been one large party of the
season at which neither man nor woman could taste wine."

"I know," replied Mr. Birtwell. "But I didn't choose to make myself
a laughing-stock. If we are in society, we must do as society does.
Individuals are not responsible for social usages. They take things
as they find them, going with the current, and leaving society to
settle for itself its code of laws and customs. If we don't like
these laws and customs, we are free to drift out of the current. But
to set ourselves against them is a weakness and a folly."

Mr. Birtwell's voice and manner grew more confident as he spoke. He
felt that he had closed the argument.

"If society," answered his wife, "gets wrong, how is it to get
right?"

Mr. Birtwell was silent.

"Is it not made up of individuals?"

"Of course."

"And is not each of the individuals responsible, in his degree, for
the conduct of society?"

"In a certain sense, yes."

"Society, as a whole, cannot determine a question of right and
wrong. Only individuals can do this. Certain of these, more
independent than the rest, pass now and then from the beaten track
of custom, and the great mass follow them. Because they do this or
that, it is right or in good taste and becomes fashionable. The many
are always led by the few. It is through the personal influence of
the leaders in social life that society is now cursed by its
drinking customs. Personal influence alone can change these customs,
and therefore every individual becomes responsible, because he might
if he would set his face against them, and any one brave enough to
do this would find many weaker ones quick to come to his side and
help him to form a better social sentiment and a better custom."

"All very nicely said," replied Mr. Birtwell, "but I'd like to see
the man brave enough to give a large fashionable party and exclude
wine."

"So would I. Though every lip but mine kept silence, there would be
one to do him honor."

"You would be alone, I fear," said the husband.

"When a man does a right and brave thing, all true men honor him in
their hearts. All may not be brave enough to stand by his side, but
a noble few will imitate the good example. Give the leader in any
cause, right or wrong, and you will always find adherents of the
cause. No, my husband, I would not be alone in doing that man honor.
His praise would be on many lips and many hearts would bless him. I
only wish you were that man! Spencer, if you will consent to take
this lead, I will walk among our guests the queenliest woman, in
heart at least, to be found in any drawing-room this season. I shall
not be without my maids-of-honor, you may be sure, and they will
come from the best families known in our city. Come! say yes, and I
will be prouder of my husband than if he were the victorious general
of a great army."

"No, thank you, my dear," replied Mr. Birtwell, not in the least
moved by his wife's enthusiasm. "I am not a social reformer, nor in
the least inclined that way. As I find things I take them. It is no
fault of mine that some people have no control of their appetites
and passions. Men will abuse almost anything to their own hurt. I
saw as many of our guests over-eat last night as over-drink, and
there will be quite as many headaches to-day from excess of terrapin
and oysters as from excess of wine. It's no use, Margaret.
Intemperance is not to be cured in this way. Men who have a taste
for wine will get it, if not in one place then in another; if not in
a gentleman's dining-room, then in a drinking-saloon, or somewhere
else."

The glow faded from Mrs. Birtwell's face and the light went out of
her eyes. Her voice was husky and choking as she replied:

"One fact does not invalidate another. Because men who have acquired
a taste for wine will have it whether we provide it for them or not,
it is no reason why we should set it before the young whose
appetites are yet unvitiated and lure them to excesses. It does not
make a free indulgence in wine and brandy any the more excusable
because men overeat themselves."

"But," broke in Mr. Birtwell, with the manner of one who gave an
unanswerable reason, "if we exclude wine that men may not hurt
themselves by over-indulgence, why not exclude the oysters and
terrapin? If we set up for reformers and philanthropists, why not
cover the whole ground?"

"Oysters and terrapin," replied Mrs. Birtwell, in a voice out of
which she could hardly keep the contempt she felt for her husband's
weak rejoinder, "don't confuse the head, dethrone the reason,
brutalize, debase and ruin men in soul and body as do wine and
brandy. The difference lies there, and all men see and feel it, make
what excuses they will for self-indulgence and deference to custom.
The curse of drink is too widely felt. There is scarcely a family in
the land on which its blight does not lie. The best, the noblest,
the purest, the bravest, have fallen. It is breaking hopes and
hearts and fortunes every day. The warning cross that marks the
grave of some poor victim hurts your eyes at every turn of life. We
are left without excuse."

Mrs. Birtwell rose as she finished speaking, and returned to her
chamber.






CHAPTER IV.





"MR. VOSS," said the waiter as he opened the door of the
breakfast-room.

Mr. and Mrs. Birtwell left the table hurriedly and went to the
parlor. Their visitor was standing in the middle of the floor as
they entered.

"Oh, Mr. Voss, have you heard anything of Archie?" exclaimed Mrs.
Birtwell.

"Nothing yet," he replied.

"Dreadful, dreadful! What can it mean?"

"Don't be alarmed about it," said Mr. Birtwell, trying to speak in
an assuring voice. "He must have gone home with a friend. It will be
all right, I am confident."

"I trust so," replied Mr. Voss. "But I cannot help feeling very
anxious. He has never been away all night before. Something is
wrong. Do you know precisely at what time he left here?"

"I do not," replied Mr. Birtwell. "We had a large company, and I did
not note particularly the coming or going of any one."

"Doctor Angier thinks it was soon after twelve o'clock. He saw him
come out of the dressing-room and go down stairs about that time."

"How is Frances?" asked Mrs. Birtwell. "It must be a dreadful shock
to her in her weak state."

"Yes, it is dreadful, and I feel very anxious about her. If anything
has happened to Archie, it will kill her."

Tears fell over Mrs. Birtwell's face and she wrung her hands in
distress.

"She is calmer than she was," said Mr. Voss. "The first alarm and
suspense broke her right down, and she was insensible for some
hours. But she is bearing it better now--much better than I had
hoped for."

"I will go to see her at once. Oh, if I knew how to comfort her!"

To this Mr. Voss made no response, but Mrs. Birtwell, who was
looking into his, face, saw an expression that she did not
understand.

"She will see me, of course?"

"I do not know. Perhaps you'd better not go round yet. It might
disturb her too much, and the doctor says she must be kept as quiet
as possible."

Something in the manner of Mr. Voss sent a chill to the heart of
Mrs. Birtwell. She felt an evasion in his reply. Then a suspicion of
the truth flashed upon her mind, overwhelming her with a flood of
bitterness in which shame, self-reproach, sorrow and distress were
mingled. It was from her hand, so to speak, that the son of her
friend had taken the wine which had bewildered his senses, and from
her house that he had gone forth with unsteady step and confused
brain to face a storm the heaviest and wildest that had been known
for years. If he were dead, would not the stain of his blood be on
her garments?

No marvel that Mr. Voss had said, "Not yet; it might disturb her too
much." Disturb the friend with whose heart her own had beaten in
closest sympathy and tenderest love for years--the friend who had
flown to her in the deepest sorrow she had ever known and held her
to her heart until she was comforted by the sweet influences of
love. Oh, this was hard to bear! She bowed her head and stood
silent.

"I wish," said Mr. Voss, speaking to Mr. Birtwell, "to get the names
of a few of the guests who were here last night. Some of them may
have seen Archie go out, or may have gone away at the time he did. I
must find some clue to the mystery of his absence."

Mr. Birtwell named over many of his guests, and Mr. Voss made a note
of their addresses. The chill went deeper down into the heart of
Mrs. Birtwell; and when Mr. Voss, who seemed to grow colder and more
constrained every moment, without looking at her, turned to go away,
the pang that cut her bosom was sharp and terrible.

"If I can do anything, Mr. Voss, command--" Mr. Birtwell had gone to
the door with his visitor, who passed out hastily, not waiting to
hear the conclusion of his sentence.

"A little strange in his manner, I should say," remarked Mr.
Birtwell as he came back. "One might infer that he thought us to
blame for his son's absence."

"I can't bear this suspense. I must see Frances." It was an hour
after Mr. Voss had been there. Mrs. Birtwell rang a bell, and
ordering the carriage, made herself ready to go out.

"Mrs. Voss says you must excuse her," said the servant who had taken
up Mrs. Birtwell's card. "She is not seeing any but the family,"
added the man, who saw in the visitor's face the pain of a great
disappointment.

Slowly retiring, her head bent forward and her body stooping a
little like one pressed down by a burden, Mrs. Birtwell left the
house of her oldest and dearest friend with an aching sense of
rejection at her heart. In the darkest and saddest hour of her life
that friend had turned from the friend who had been to her more than
a sister, refusing the sympathy and tears she had come to offer.
There was a bitter cup at the lips of both; which was the bitterest
it would be hard to tell.

"Not now," Mrs. Voss had said, speaking to her husband; "I cannot
meet her now."

"Perhaps you had better see her," returned the latter.

"No, no, no!" Mrs. Voss put up her hands and shivered as she spoke.
"I cannot, I cannot! Oh, my boy! my son! my poor Archie! Where are
you? Why do you not come home? Hark!"

The bell had rung loudly. They listened, and heard men's voices in
the hall below. With face flushing and paling in quick alternations,
Mrs. Voss started up in bed and leaned forward, hearkening eagerly.
Mr. Voss opened the chamber door and went out. Two policemen had
come to report that so far all efforts to find a trace of the young
man had been utterly fruitless. Mrs. Voss heard in silence. Slowly
the dark lashes fell upon her cheeks, that were white as marble. Her
lips were rigid and closely shut, her hands clenched tightly. So she
struggled with the fear and agony that were assaulting her life.






CHAPTER V.





A HANDSOME man of forty-five stood lingering by the bedside of his
wife, whose large tender eyes looked up at him almost wistfully. A
baby's head, dark with beautiful hair that curled in scores of
silken ringlets, lay close against her bosom. The chamber was not
large nor richly furnished, though everything was in good taste and
comfortable. A few articles were out of harmony with the rest and
hinted at better days. One of these was a large secretary of curious
workmanship, inlaid with costly woods and pearl and rich with
carvings. Another was a small mantel clock of exquisite beauty. Two
or three small but rare pictures hung on the walls.

Looking closely into the man's strong intellectual face, you would
have seen something that marred the harmony of its fine features and
dimmed its clear expression--something to stir a doubt or awaken a
feeling of concern. The eyes, that were deep and intense, had a
shadow in them, and the curves of the mouth had suffering and
passion and evidences of stern mental conflict in every line. This
was no common man, no social drone, but one who in his contact with
men was used to making himself felt.

"Come home early, Ralph, won't you?" said his wife.

The man bent down and kissed her, and then pressed his lips to the
baby's head.

"Yes, dear; I don't mean to stay late. If it wasn't for the
expectation of meeting General Logan and one or two others that I
particularly wish to see, I wouldn't go at all. I have to make good,
you know, all the opportunities that come in my way."

"Oh yes, I know. You must go, of course." She had taken her
husband's hand, and was holding it with a close pressure. He had to
draw it away almost by force.

"Good-night, dear, and God bless you." His voice trembled a little.
He stooped and kissed her again. A moment after and she was alone.
Then all the light went out of her face and a deep shadow fell
quickly over it. She shut her eyes, but not tightly enough to hold
back the tears that soon carne creeping slowly out from beneath the
closed lashes.

Ralph Ridley was a lawyer of marked ability. A few years before, he
had given up a good practice at the bar for an office under the
State government. Afterward he was sent to Congress and passed four
years in Washington. Like too many of our ablest public men, the
temptations of that city were too much for him. It was the old sad
story that repeats itself every year. He fell a victim to the
drinking customs of our national capital. Everywhere and on all
social occasions invitations to wine met him. He drank with a friend
on his way to the House, and with another in the Capitol buildings
before taking his seat for business. He drank at lunch and at
dinner, and he drank more freely at party or levee in the evening.
Only in the early morning was he free from the bewildering effects
of liquor.

Four years of such a life broke down his manhood. Hard as he
sometimes struggled to rise above the debasing appetite that had
enslaved him, resolution snapped like thread in a flame with every
new temptation. He stood erect and hopeful to-day, and to-morrow lay
prone and despairing under the heel of his enemy.

At the end of his second term in Congress the people of his district
rejected him. They could tolerate a certain degree of drunkenness
and demoralization in their representative, but Ridley had fallen
too low. They would have him no longer, and so he was left out in
the party nomination and sent back into private life hurt,
humiliated and in debt. No clients awaited his return. His
law-office had been closed for years, and there was little
encouragement to open it again in the old place. For some weeks
after his failure to get the nomination Ridley drank more
desperately than ever, and was in a state of intoxication nearly all
the while. His poor wife, who clung to him through all with an
unwavering fidelity, was nearly broken-hearted. In vain had
relatives and friends interposed. No argument nor persuasion could
induce her to abandon him. "He is my husband," was her only reply,
"and I will not leave him."

One night he was brought home insensible. He had fallen in the
street where some repairs were being made, and had received serious
injuries which confined him to the house for two or three weeks.
This gave time for reflection and repentance. The shame and remorse
that filled his soul as he looked at his sad, pale wife and
neglected children, and thought of his tarnished name and lost
opportunities, spurred him to new and firmer resolves than ever
before made. He could go forward no longer without utter ruin. No
hope was left but in turning back. He must set his face in a new
direction, and he vowed to do so, promising God on his knees in
tears and agony to hold, by his vow sacredly.

A new day had dawned. As soon as Mr. Ridley was well enough to be
out again he took counsel of friends, and after careful deliberation
resolved to leave his native town and remove to the city. A lawyer
of fine ability, and known to the public as a clear thinker and an
able debater, he had made quite an impression on the country during
his first term in Congress; neither he nor his friends had any doubt
as to his early success, provided he was able to keep himself free
from the thraldom of old habits.

A few old friends and political associates made up a purse to enable
him to remove to the city with his family. An office was taken and
three rooms rented in a small house, where, with his wife and two
children, one daughter in her fourteenth year, life was started
anew. There was no room for a servant in this small establishment
even if he had been able to pay the hire of one.

So the new beginning was made. A man of Mr. Ridley's talents and
reputation could not long remain unemployed. In the very first week
he had a client and a retaining fee of twenty-five dollars. The case
was an important one, involving some nice questions of mercantile
law. It came up for argument in the course of a few weeks, and gave
the opportunity he wanted. His management of the case was so
superior to that of the opposing counsel, and his citations of law
and precedent so cumulative and explicit, that he gained not only an
easy victory, but made for himself a very favorable impression.

After that business began gradually to flow in upon him, and he was
able to gather in sufficient to keep his family, though for some
time only in a very humble way. Having no old acquaintances in the
city, Mr. Ridley was comparatively free from temptation. He was
promptly at his office in the morning, never leaving it, except to
go into court or some of the public offices on business, until the
hour arrived for returning home.

A new life had become dominant, a new ambition was ruling him. Hope
revived in the heart of his almost despairing wife, and the future
looked bright again. His eyes had grown clear and confident once
more and his stooping shoulders square and erect. In his bearing you
saw the old stateliness and conscious sense of power. Men treated
him with deference and respect.

In less than a year Mr. Ridley was able to remove his family into a
better house and to afford the expense of a servant. So far they had
kept out of the city's social life. Among strangers and living
humbly, almost meanly, they neither made nor received calls nor had
invitations to evening entertainments; and herein lay Mr. Ridley's
safety. It was on his social side that he was weakest. He could hold
himself above appetite and deny its cravings if left to the contest
alone. The drinking-saloons whose hundred doors he had to pass daily
did not tempt him, did not cause his firm steps to pause nor linger.
His sorrow and shame for the past and his solemn promises and hopes
for the future were potent enough to save him from all such
allurements. For him their doors stood open in vain. The path of
danger lay in another direction. He would have to be taken unawares.
If betrayed at all, it must be, so to speak, in the house of a
friend. The Delilah of "good society" must put caution and
conscience to sleep and then rob him of his strength.

The rising man at the bar of a great city who had already served two
terms in Congress could not long remain in social obscurity; and as
it gradually became known in the "best society" that Mrs. Ridley
stood connected with some of the "best families" in the State, one
and another began to call upon her and to court her acquaintance,
even though she was living in comparative obscurity and in a humble
way.

At first regrets were returned to all invitations to evening
entertainments, large or small. Mr. Ridley very well understood why
his wife, who was social and naturally fond of company, was so
prompt to decline. He knew that the excuse, "We are not able to give
parties in return," was not really the true one. He knew that she
feared the temptation that would come to him, and he was by no means
insensible to the perils that would beset him whenever he found
himself in the midst of a convivial company, with the odor of wine
heavy on the air and invitations to drink meeting him at every turn.

But this could not always be. Mr. and Mrs. Ridley could not for ever
hold themselves away from the social life of a large city among the
people of which their acquaintance was gradually extending. Mrs.
Ridley would have continued to stand aloof because of the danger she
had too good reason to fear, but her husband was growing, she could
see, both sensitive and restless. He wanted the professional
advantages society would give him, and he wanted, moreover, to prove
his manhood and take away the reproach under which he felt himself
lying.

Sooner or later he must walk this way of peril, and he felt that he
was becoming strong enough and brave enough to meet the old enemy
that had vanquished him so many times.

"We will go," he said, on receiving cards of invitation to a party
given by a prominent and influential citizen. "People will be there
whom I should meet, and people whom I want you to meet."

He saw a shadow creep into his wife's face; Mrs. Ridley saw the
shadow reflected almost as a frown from his. She knew what was in
her husband's thoughts, knew that he felt hurt and restless under
her continued reluctance to have him go into any company where wine
and spirits were served to the guests, and feeling that a longer
opposition might do more harm than good, answered, with as much
heartiness and assent as she could get into her voice:

"Very well, but it will cost you the price of a new dress, for I
have nothing fit to appear in."

The shadow swept off Mr. Ridley's face.

"All right," he returned. "I received a fee of fifty dollars to-day,
and you shall have every cent; of it."

In the week that intervened Mrs. Ridley made herself ready for the
party; but had she been preparing for a funeral, her heart could
scarcely have been heavier. Fearful dreams haunted her sleep, and
through the day imagination would often draw pictures the sight of
which made her cry out in sudden pain and fear. All this she
concealed from her husband, and affected to take a pleased interest
in the coming entertainment.

Mrs. Ridley was still a handsome woman, and her husband felt the old
pride warming his bosom when he saw her again among brilliant and
attractive women and noted the impression she made. He watched her
with something of the proud interest a mother feels for a beautiful
daughter who makes her appearance in society for the first time, and
his heart beat with liveliest pleasure as he noticed the many
instances in which she attracted and held people by the grace of her
manner and the charm of her conversation.

"God bless her!" he said in his heart fervently as the love he bore
her warmed into fresher life and moved him with a deeper tenderness,
and then he made for her sake a new vow of abstinence and set anew
the watch and ward upon his appetite. And he had need of watch and
ward. The wine-merchant's bill for that evening's entertainment was
over eight hundred dollars, and men and women, girls and boys, all
drank in unrestrained freedom.

Mrs. Ridley, without seeming to do so, kept close to her husband
while he was in the supper-room, and he, as if feeling the power of
her protecting influence, was pleased to have her near. The smell of
wine, its sparkle in the glasses, the freedom and apparent safety
with which every one drank, the frequent invitations received, and
the little banter and half-surprised lifting of the eyebrows that
came now and then upon refusal were no light draught on Mr. Ridley's
strength.

"Have you tried this sherry, Mr. Ridley?" said the gentlemanly host,
taking a bottle from the supper-table and filling two glasses. "It
is very choice." He lifted one of the glasses as he spoke and handed
it to his guest. There was a flattering cordiality in his manner
that made the invitation almost irresistible, and moreover he was a
prominent and influential citizen whose favorable consideration Mr.
Ridley wished to gain. If his wife had not been standing by his
side, he would have accepted the glass, and for what seemed good
breeding's sake have sipped a little, just tasting its flavor, so
that he could compliment his host upon its rare quality.

"Thank you," Mr. Ridley was able to say, "but I do not take wine."
His voice was not clear and manly, but unsteady and weak.

"Oh, excuse me," said the gentleman, setting down the glass quickly.
"I was not aware of that." He stood as if slightly embarrassed for a
moment, and then, turning to a clergyman who stood close by, said:

"Will you take a glass of wine with me, Mr. Elliott?"

An assenting smile broke into Mr. Elliott's face, and he reached for
the glass which Mr. Ridley had just refused.

"Something very choice," said the host.

The clergyman tasted and sipped with the air of a connoisseur.

"Very choice indeed, sir," he replied. "But you always have good
wine."

Mrs. Ridley drew her hand in her husband's arm and leaned upon it.

"If it is to be had," returned the host, a little, proudly; "and I
generally know where to get it. A good glass of wine I count among
the blessings for which one may give thanks--wine, I mean, not
drugs."

"Exactly; wine that is pure hurts no one, unless, indeed, his
appetite has been vitiated through alcoholic indulgence, and even
then I have sometimes thought that the moderate use of strictly pure
wine would restore the normal taste and free a man from the tyranny
of an enslaving vice."

That sentence took quick hold upon the thought of Mr. Ridley. It
gave him a new idea, and he listened with keen interest to what
followed.

"You strike the keynote of a true temperance reformation, Mr.
Elliott," returned the host. "Give men pure wine instead of the vile
stuff that bears its name, and you will soon get rid of drunkenness.
I have always preached that doctrine."

"And I imagine you are about right," answered Mr. Elliott. "Wine is
one of God's gifts, and must be good. If men abuse it sometimes, it
is nothing more than they do with almost every blessing the Father
of all mercies bestows upon his children. The abuse of a thing is no
argument against its use."

Mrs. Ridley drew upon the arm of her husband. She did not like the
tenor of this conversation, and wanted to get him away. But he was
interested in what the clergyman was saying, and wished to hear what
further he might adduce in favor of the health influence of pure
wine.

"I have always used wine, and a little good brandy too, and am as
free from any inordinate appetite as your most confirmed abstainer;
but then I take especial care to have my liquor pure."

"A thing not easily done," said the clergyman, replying to their
host.

"Not easy for every one, but yet possible. I have never found much
difficulty."

"There will be less difficulty, I presume," returned Mr. Elliott,
"when this country becomes, as it soon will, a large wine producing
region. When cheap wines take the place of whisky, we will have a
return to temperate habits among the lower classes, and not, I am
satisfied, before. There is, and always has been, a craving in the
human system for some kind of stimulus. After prolonged effort there
is exhaustion and nervous languor that cannot always wait upon the
restorative work of nutrition; indeed, the nutritive organs
themselves often need stimulation before they can act with due
vigor. Isn't that so, Dr. Hillhouse?"

And the clergyman addressed a handsome old man with hair almost as
white as snow who stood listening to the conversation. He held a
glass of wine in his hand.

"You speak with the precision of a trained pathologist," replied the
person addressed, bowing gracefully and with considerable manner as
he spoke. "I could not have said it better, Mr. Elliott."

The clergyman received the compliment with a pleased smile and bowed
his acknowledgments, then remarked:

"You think as I do about the good effects that must follow a large
product of American wines?"

Dr. Hillhouse gave a little shrug.

"Oh, then you don't agree with me?"

"Pure wine is one thing and too much of what is called American wine
quite another thing," replied the doctor. "Cheap wine for the
people, as matters now stand, is only another name for diluted
alcohol. It is better than pure whisky, maybe, though the larger
quantity that will naturally be taken must give the common dose of
that article and work about the same effect in the end."

"Then you are not in favor of giving the people cheap wines?" said
the clergyman.

The doctor shrugged his shoulders again.

"I have been twice to Europe," he replied, "and while there looked a
little into the condition of the poorer classes in wine countries. I
had been told that there was scarcely any intemperance among them,
but I did not find it so. There, as here, the use of alcohol in any
form, whether as beer, wine or whisky, produces the same result,
varied in its effect upon the individual only by the peculiarity of
temperament and national character of the people. I'll take another
glass of that sherry; it's the best I've tasted for a year."

And Dr. Hillhouse held out his glass to be filled by the flattered
host, Mr. Elliott doing the same, and physician and clergyman
touched their brimming glasses and smiled and bowed "a good health."
Before the hour for going home arrived both were freer of tongue and
a little wilder in manner than when they came.

"The doctor is unusually brilliant to-night," said one, with just a
slight lifting of the eyebrow.

"And so is Mr. Elliott," returned the person addressed, glancing at
the clergyman, who, standing in the midst of a group of young men,
glass in hand, was telling a story and laughing at his own
witticisms.

"Nothing strait-laced about Mr. Elliott," remarked the other. "I
like him for that. He doesn't think because he's a clergyman that he
must always wear a solemn face and act as if he were conducting a
funeral service. Just hear him laugh! It makes you feel good. You
can get near to such a man. All the young people in his congregation
like him because he doesn't expect them to come up to his official
level, but is ever ready to come down to them and enter into their
feelings and tastes."

"He likes a good glass of wine," said the first speaker.

"Of course he does. Have you any objection?"

"Shall I tell you what came into my thought just now?"

"Yes."

"What St. Paul said about eating meat."

"Oh!"

"'If meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the
world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend.' And again: 'Take
heed lest by any means this liberty of yours become a
stumbling-block to them that are weak.'"

"How does that apply to Mr. Elliott?"

"There are more than one or two young men in the group that
surrounds him who need a better example than he is now setting. They
need repression in the matter of wine-drinking, not encouragement--a
good example of abstinence in their minister, and not enticement to
drink through his exhibition of liberty. Do you think that I, church
member though I am not, could stand as Mr. Elliott is now standing,
glass in hand, gayly talking to young Ellis Whitford, who rarely
goes to a party without--poor weak young man!--drinking too much,
and so leading him on in the way of destruction instead of seeking
in eager haste to draw him back? No sir! It is no light thing, as I
regard it, to put a stumbling-block in another's way or to lead the
weak or unwary into temptation."

"Perhaps you are right about it," was the answer, "and I must
confess that, though not a temperance man myself, I never feel quite
comfortable about it when I see clergymen taking wine freely at
public dinners and private parties. It is not a good example, to say
the least of it; and if there is a class of men in the community to
whom we have some right to look for a good example, it is the class
chosen and set apart to the work of saving human souls."






CHAPTER VI.





MR. RIDLEY went home from that first party with his head as clear
and his pulse as cool as when he came. The wine had not tempted him
very strongly, though its odor had been fragrant to his nostrils,
and the sparkle in the glasses pleasant to his sight. Appetite had
not aroused itself nor put on its strength, but lay half asleep,
waiting for some better opportunity, when the sentinels should be
weaker or off their guard.

It had been much harder for him to refuse the invitation of his host
than to deny the solicitations of the old desire. He had been in
greater danger from pride than from appetite; and there remained
with him a sense of being looked down upon and despised by the
wealthy and eminent citizen who had honored him with an invitation,
and who doubtless regarded his refusal to take wine with him as
little less than a discourtesy. There were moments when he almost
regretted that refusal. The wine which had been offered was of the
purest quality, and he remembered but too well the theory advanced
by Mr. Elliott, that the moderate use of pure wine would restore the
normal taste and free a man whose appetite had been vitiated from
its enslaving influence. His mind recurred to that thought very
often, and the more he dwelt upon it, the more inclined he was to
accept it as true. If it were indeed so, then he might be a man
among men again.

Mr. Ridley did not feel as comfortable in his mind after as before
this party, nor was he as strong as before. The enemy had found a
door unguarded, had come in stealthily, and was lying on the alert,
waiting for an opportunity.

A few weeks afterward came another invitation. It was accepted. Mrs.
Ridley was not really well enough, to go out, but for her husband's
sake she went with him, and by her presence and the quiet power she
had over him held him back from the peril he might, standing alone,
have tempted.

A month later, and cards of invitation were received from Mr. and
Mrs. Spencer Birtwell. This was to be among the notable
entertainments of the season. Mr. Birtwell was a wealthy banker who,
like other men, had his weaknesses, one of which was a love of
notoriety and display. He had a showy house and attractive
equipages, and managed to get his name frequently chronicled in the
newspapers, now as the leader in some public enterprise or charity,
now as the possessor of some rare work of art, and now as the
princely capitalists whose ability and sagacity had lifted him from
obscurity to the proud position he occupied. He built himself a
palace for a residence, and when it was completed and furnished
issued tickets of admission, that the public might see in what
splendor he was going to live. Of course the newspapers described
everything with a minuteness of detail and a freedom of remark that
made some modest and sensitive people fancy that Mr. Birtwell must
be exceedingly annoyed. But he experienced no such feeling. Praise
of any kind was pleasant to his ears; you could not give him too
much, nor was he over-nice as to the quality. He lived in the eyes
of his fellow-citizens, and in all his walk and conversation, he
looked to their good opinion.

Such was Mr. Birtwell, at whose house a grand entertainment was to
be given. Among the large number of invited guests were included Mr.
and Mrs. Ridley. But it so happened that Mrs. Ridley could not go. A
few days before the evening on which this party was to be given a
new-born babe had been laid on her bosom.

"Good-night, dear, and God bless you!" Mr. Ridley had said, in a
voice that was very tender, as he stooped over and kissed his wife.
No wonder that all the light went out of her face the moment she was
alone, nor that a shadow fell quickly over it, nor that from beneath
the fringes of her shut eyelids tears crept slowly and rested upon
her cheeks. If her husband had left her for the battlefield, she
could not have felt a more dreadful impression of danger, nor have
been oppressed by a more terrible fear for his safety. No wonder
that her nurse, coming into the chamber a few minutes after Mr.
Ridley went out, found her in a nervous chill.

The spacious and elegant drawing-rooms of Mr. and Mrs. Birtwell were
crowded with the elite of the city, and the heart of the former
swelled with pride as he received his guests and thought of their
social, professional or political distinction, the lustre of which
he felt to be, for the time, reflected upon himself. It was good to
be in such company, and to feel that he was equal with the best. He
had not always been the peer of such men. There had been an era of
obscurity out of which he had slowly emerged, and therefore he had
the larger pride and self-satisfaction in the position he now held.

Mrs. Birtwell was a woman of another order. All her life she had
been used to the elegancy that a wealthy parentage gave, and to
which her husband had been, until within a few years, an entire
stranger. She was "to the manner born," he a parvenu with a restless
ambition to outshine. Familiarity with things luxurious and costly
had lessened their value in her eyes, and true culture had lifted
her above the weakness of resting in or caring much about them,
while their newness and novelty to Mr. Birtwell made enjoyment keen,
and led him on to extravagant and showy exhibitions of wealth that
caused most people to smile at his weakness, and a good many to ask
who he was and from whence he came that he carried himself so
loftily. Mrs. Birtwell did not like the advanced position to which
her husband carried her, but she yielded to his weak love of
notoriety and social eclat as gracefully as possible, and did her
best to cover his too glaring violations of good taste and
conventional refinement. In this she was not always successful.

Of course the best of liquors in lavish abundance were provided by
Mr. Birtwell for his guests. Besides the dozen different kinds of
wine that were on the supper-table, there was a sideboard for
gentlemen, in a room out of common observation, well stocked with
brandy, gin and whisky, and it was a little curious to see how
quickly this was discovered by certain of the guests, who scented it
as truly as a bee scents honey in a clover-field, and extracted its
sweets as eagerly.

Of the guests who were present we have now to deal chiefly with Mr.
Ridley, and only incidentally with the rest. Dr. Hillhouse was there
during the first part of the evening, but went away early--that, is,
before twelve o'clock. He remained long enough, however, to do full
justice to the supper and wines. His handsome and agreeable young
associate, Dr. Angler, a slight acquaintance with whom the reader
has already, prolonged his stay to a later hour.

The Rev. Dr. Elliott was also, among the guests, displaying his fine
social qualities and attracting about him the young and the old.
Everybody liked Dr. Elliott, he was so frank, so cordial, free and
sympathetic, and, withal, so intelligent. He did not bring the
clergyman with him into a gay drawing-room, nor the ascetic to a
feast. He could talk with the banker about finance, with the
merchant about trade, with the student or editor about science,
literature and the current events of the day, and with young men and
maidens about music and the lighter matters in which they happened
to be interested. And, moreover, he could enjoy a good supper and
knew the flavor of good wine. A man of such rare accomplishments
came to be a general favorite, and so you encountered Mr. Elliott at
nearly all the fashionable parties.

Mr. Ridley had met the reverend doctor twice, and had been much
pleased with him. What he had heard him say about the healthy or
rather saving influences of pure wine had taken a strong hold of his
thoughts, and he had often wished for an opportunity to talk with
him about it. On this evening he found that opportunity. Soon after
his arrival at the house of Mr. Birtwell he saw Mr. Elliott in one
of the parlors, and made his way into the little group which had
already gathered around the affable clergyman. Joining in the
conversation, which was upon some topic of the day, Mr. Ridley, who
talked well, was not long in awakening that interest in the mind of
Mr. Elliott which one cultivated and intelligent person naturally
feels for another; and in a little while, they had the conversation
pretty much to themselves. It touched this theme and that, and
finally drifted in a direction which enabled Mr. Ridley to refer to
what he had heard Mr. Elliott say about the healthy effect of pure
wine on the taste of men whose appetites had become morbid, and to
ask him if he had any good ground for his belief.

"I do not know that I can bring any proof of my theory," returned
Mr. Elliott, "but I hold to it on the ground of an eternal fitness
of things. Wine is good, and was given by God to make glad the
hearts of men, and is to be used temperately, as are all other
gifts. It may be abused, and is abused daily. Men hurt themselves by
excess of wine as by excess of food. But the abuse of a thing is no
argument against its use. If a man through epicurism or gormandizing
has brought on disease, what do you do with him? Deny him all food,
or give him of the best in such quantities as his nutritive system
can appropriate and change into healthy muscle, nerve and bone? You
do the latter, of course, and so would I treat the case of a man who
bad hurt himself by excess of wine. I would see that he had only the
purest and in diminished quantity, so that his deranged system might
not only have time but help in regaining its normal condition."

"And you think this could be safely done?" said Mr. Ridley.

"That is my view of the case."

"Then you do not hold to the entire abstinence theory?"

"No, sir; on that subject our temperance people have run into what
we might call fanaticism, and greatly weakened their influence. Men
should be taught self-control and moderation in the use of things.
If the appetite becomes vitiated through over-indulgence, you do not
change its condition by complete denial. What you want for radical
cure is the restoration of the old ability to use without abusing.
In other words, you want a man made right again as to his rational
power of self-control, by which he becomes master of himself in all
the degrees of his life, from the highest to the lowest."

"All very well," remarked Dr. Hillhouse, who had joined them while
Mr. Elliott was speaking. "But, in my experience, the rational
self-control of which you speak is one of the rarest things to be
met with in common life, and it may be fair to conclude that the man
who cannot exercise it before a dangerous habit has been formed will
not be very likely to exercise it afterward when anything is done to
favor that habit. Habits, Mr. Elliott, are dreadful hard things to
manage, and I do not know a harder one to deal with than the habit
of over-indulgence in wine or spirits. I should be seriously afraid
of your prescription. The temperate use of wine I hold to be good;
but for those who have once lost the power of controlling their
appetites I am clear in my opinion there is only one way of safety,
and that is the way of entire abstinence from any drink in which
there is alcohol, call it by what name you will; and this is the
view now held by the most experienced and intelligent men, in our
profession."

A movement in the company being observed, Mr. Elliott, instead of
replying, stepped toward a lady, and asked the pleasure of escorting
her to the supper-room. Dr. Hillhouse was equally courteous, and Mr.
Ridley, seeing the wife of General Logan, whom he had often met in
Washington, standing a little way off, passed to her side and
offered his arm, which was accepted.

There was a crowd and crush upon the stairs, fine gentlemen and
ladies seeming to forget their courtesy and good breeding in their
haste to be among the earliest who should reach the banqueting-hall.
This was long and spacious, having been planned by Mr. Birtwell with
a view to grand entertainments like the one he was now giving. In an
almost incredibly short space of time it was filled to suffocation.
Those who thought themselves among the first to move were surprised
to find the tables already surrounded by young men and women, who
had been more interested in the status of the supper-room than in
the social enjoyments of the parlors, and who had improved their
advanced state of observation by securing precedence of the rest,
and stood waiting for the signal to begin.

Mr. Birtwell had a high respect for the Church, and on an occasion
like this could do no less than honor one of its dignitaries by
requesting him to ask a blessing on the sumptuous repast he had
provided--on the rich food and the good wine and brandy he was about
dispensing with such a liberal hand. So, in the waiting pause that
ensued after the room was well filled, Mr. Elliott was called upon
to bless this feast, which he did in a raised, impressive and finely
modulated voice. Then came the rattle of plates and the clink of
glasses, followed by the popping of champagne and the multitudinous
and distracting Babel of tongues.

Mr. Ridley, who felt much inclined to favor the superficial and
ill-advised utterances of Mr. Elliott, took scarcely any heed of
what Dr. Hillhouse had replied. In fact, knowing that the doctor was
free with wine himself, he did not give much weight to what he said,
feeling that he was talking more for argument's sake than to express
his real sentiments.

A feeling of repression came over Mr. Ridley as he entered the
supper-room and his eyes ran down the table. Half of this sumptuous
feast was forbidden enjoyment. He must not taste the wine. All were
free but him. He could fill a glass for the elegant lady whose hand
was still upon his arm, but must not pledge her back except in
water. A sense of shame and humiliation crept into his heart. So he
felt when, in the stillness that fell upon the company, the voice of
Mr. Elliott rose in blessing on the good things now spread for them
in such lavish profusion. Only one sentence took hold on, Mr.
Ridley's mind. It was this: "Giver of all natural as well as
spiritual good things, of the corn and the wine equally with the
bread and the water of life, sanctify these bounties that come from
thy beneficent hand, and keep us from any inordinate or hurtful use
thereof."

Mr. Ridley drew a deeper breath. A load seemed taken from his bosom.
He felt a sense of freedom and safety. If the wine were pure, it was
a good gift of God, and could not really do him harm. A priest,
claiming to stand as God's representative among men, had invoked a
blessing on this juice of the grape, and given it by this act a
healthier potency. All this crowded upon him, stifling reason and
experience and hushing the voice of prudence.

And now, alas! he was as a feather on the surface of a wind-struck
lake, and given up to the spirit and pressure of the hour. The
dangerous fallacy to which Mr. Elliott had given utterance held his
thoughts to the exclusion of all other considerations. A clear path
out of the dreary wilderness in which he had been, straying seemed
to open before him, and he resolved to walk therein. Fatal delusion!

As soon as Mr. Ridley had supplied Mrs. General Locran with terrapin
and oysters and filled a plate for himself, he poured out two
glasses of wine and handed one of them to the lady, then, lifting
the other, he bowed a compliment and placed it to his lips. The lady
smiled on him graciously, sipping the wine and praising its flavor.

"Pure as nectar," was the mental response of Mr. Ridley as the
long-denied palate felt the first thrill of sweet satisfaction. He
had taken a single mouthful, but another hand seemed to grasp the
one that held the cup of wine and press it back to his lips, from
which it was not removed until empty.

The prescription of Mr. Elliott failed. Either the wine was not pure
or his theory was at fault. It was but little over an hour from the
fatal moment when Mr. Ridley put a glass of wine to his lips ere he
went out alone into the storm of a long-to-be-remembered night in a
state of almost helpless intoxication, and staggered off in the
blinding snow that soon covered his garments like a winding sheet.






CHAPTER VII.





THE nurse of Mrs. Ridley had found her in a nervous chill, at which
she was greatly troubled. More clothing was laid upon the bed, and
bottles of hot water placed to her feet. To all this Mrs. Ridley
made no objection--remained, in fact, entirely passive and
irresponsive, like one in a partial stupor, from which she did not,
to all appearance, rally even after the chill had subsided.

She lay with her eyes shut, her lips pressed together and her
forehead drawn into lines, and an expression of pain on her face,
answering only in dull monosyllables to the inquiries made every now
and then by her nurse, who hovered about the bed and watched over
her with anxious solicitude.

As she feared, fever symptoms began to show themselves. The evening
had worn away, and it was past ten o'clock. It would not do to wait
until morning in a case like this, and so a servant was sent to the
office of Dr. Hillhouse, with a request that he would come
immediately. She returned saying that the doctor was not at home.

Mrs. Ridley lay with her eyes shut, but the nurse knew by the
expression of her face that she was not asleep. The paleness of her
countenance had given way to a fever hue, and she noticed occasional
restless movements of the hands, twitches of the eyelids and nervous
starts. To her questions the patient gave no satisfactory answers.

An hour elapsed, and still the doctor did not make his appearance.
The servant was called and questioned. She was positive about having
left word for the doctor to come immediately on returning home.

"Is that snow?" inquired Mrs. Ridley, starting up in bed and
listening. The wind had risen suddenly and swept in a gusty dash
against the windows, rattling on the glass the fine hard grains
which had been falling for some time.

She remained leaning on her arm and listening for some moments,
while an almost frightened look came into her face.

"What time is it?" she asked.

"After eleven o'clock," replied the nurse.

All at once the storm seemed to have awakened into a wild fury. More
loudly it rushed and roared and dashed its sand-like snow against
the windows of Mrs. Ridley's chamber. The sick woman shivered and
the fever-flush died out of her face.

"You must lie down!" said the nurse, speaking with decision and
putting her hands on Mrs. Ridley to press her back. But the latter
resisted.

"Indeed, indeed, ma'am," urged the nurse, showing great anxiety,
"you must lie down and keep covered up in bed. It might be the death
of you."

"Oh, that's awful!" exclaimed Mrs. Ridley as the wind went howling
by and the snow came in heavier gusts against the windows. "Past
eleven, did you say?"

"Yes, ma'am, and the doctor ought to have been here long ago. I
wonder why he doesn't come?"

"Hark! wasn't that our bell?" cried Mrs. Ridley, bending forward in
a listening attitude.

The nurse opened the chamber door and stood hearkening for a moment
or two. Not hearing the servant stir, she ran quickly down stairs to
the street door and drew it open, but found no one.

There was a look of suspense and fear in Mrs. Ridley's face when the
nurse came back:

"Who was it?"

"No one," replied the nurse. "The wind deceived you."

A groan came from Mrs. Ridley's lips as she sank down upon the bed,
where, with her face hidden, she lay as still as if sleeping. She
did not move nor speak for the space of more than half an hour, and
all the while her nurse waited and listened through the weird,
incessant noises of the storm for the coming of Dr. Hillhouse, but
waited and listened in vain.

All at once, as if transferred to within a few hundred rods of these
anxious watchers, the great clock of the city, which in the still
hours of a calm night could be heard ringing out clear but afar off,
threw a resonant clang upon the air, pealing the first stroke of the
hour of twelve. Mrs. Ridley started up in bed with a scared look on
her face. Away the sound rolled, borne by the impetuous wind-wave
that had caught it up as the old bell shivered it off, and carried
it away so swiftly that it seemed to die almost in the moment it was
born. The listeners waited, holding their breaths. Then, swept from
the course this first peal had taken, the second came to their ears
after a long interval muffled and from a distance, followed almost
instantly by the third, which went booming past them louder than the
first. And so, with strange intervals and variations of time and
sound as the wind dashed wildly onward or broke and swerved from its
course, the noon of night was struck, and the silence that for a
brief time succeeded left a feeling of awe upon the hearts of these
lonely women.

To the ears of another had come these strange and solemn tones,
struck out at midnight away up in the clear rush of the tempest, and
swept away in a kind of mad sport, and tossed about in the murky
sky. To the ears of another, who, struggling and battling with the
storm, had made his way with something of a blind instinct to within
a short distance of his home, every stroke of the clock seemed to
come from a different quarter; and when the last peal rang out, it
left him in helpless bewilderment. When he staggered on again, it
was in a direction opposite to that in which he had been going. For
ten minutes he wrought with the blinding and suffocating snow,
which, turn as he would, the wind kept dashing into his face, and
then his failing limbs gave out and he sunk benumbed with cold upon
the pavement. Half buried in the snow, he was discovered soon
afterward and carried to a police station, where he found himself
next morning in one of the cells, a wretched, humiliated, despairing
man.

"Why, Mr. Ridley! It can't be possible!" It was the exclamation of
the police magistrate when this man was brought, soon after
daylight, before him.

Ridley stood dumb in presence of the officer, who was touched by the
helpless misery of his face.

"You were at Mr. Birtwell's?"

Ridley answered by a silent inclination of his head.

"I do not wonder," said the magistrate, his voice softening, "that,
you lost your way in the storm last night. You are not the only one
who found himself astray and at fault. Our men had to take care of
quite a number of Mr. Birtwell's guests. But I will not detain you,
Mr. Ridley. I am sorry this has happened. You must be more careful
in future."

With slow steps and bowed head Mr. Ridley left the station-house and
took his way homeward. How could he meet his wife? What of her? How
had she passed the night? Vividly came up the parting scene as she
lay with her babe, only a few days old, close against her bosom, her
tender eyes, in which he saw shadows of fear, fixed lovingly upon
his face.

He had promised to be home soon, and had said a fervent "God bless
you!" as he left a kiss warm upon her lips.

And now! He stood still, a groan breaking on the air. Go home! How
could he look into the face of his wife again? She had walked with
him through the valley of humiliation in sorrow and suffering and
shame for years, and now, after going up from this valley and
bearing her to a pleasant land of hope and happiness, he had plunged
down madly. Then a sudden fear smote his heart. She was in no
condition to bear a shock such as his absence all night must have
caused. The consequences might be fatal. He started forward at a
rapid pace, hurrying along until he came in sight of his house. A
carriage stood at the door. What could this mean?

Entering, he was halfway up stairs when, the nurse met him.

"Oh, Mr. Ridley," she exclaimed, "why did you stay away all night?
Mrs. Ridley has been so ill, and I couldn't get the doctor. Oh, sir,
I don't know what will come of it. She's in a dreadful way--out of
her head. I sent for Dr. Hillhouse last night, but he didn't come."

She spoke in a rapid manner, showing much alarm and agitation.

"Is Dr. Hillhouse here now?" asked Mr. Ridley, trying to repress his
feelings.

"No, sir. He sent Dr. Angier, but I don't trust much in him. Dr.
Hillhouse ought to see her right away. But you do look awful, sir!"

The nurse fixed her eyes upon him in a half-wondering stare.

Mr. Ridley broke from her, and passing up the stairs in two or three
long strides, made his way to the bath-room, where in a few moments
he changed as best he could his disordered appearance, and then
hurried to his wife's chamber.

A wild cry of joy broke from her lips as she saw him enter; but when
he came near, she put up her hands and shrunk away from him, saying
in a voice that fairly wailed, it was so full of disappointment:

"I thought it was Ralph--my dear, good Ralph! Why don't he come
home?"

Her cheeks were red with fever and her eyes bright and shining. She
had started up in bed on hearing her husband's step, but now shrunk
down under the clothing and turned her face away.

"Blanche! Blanche!" Mr. Ridley called the name of his wife tenderly
as he stood leaning over her.

Moving her head slowly, like one in doubt, she looked at him in a
curious, questioning way. Then, closing her eyes, she turned her
face from him again.

"Blanche! Blanche!" For all the response that came, Mr. Ridley might
as well have spoken to deaf ears. Dr. Angier laid his hand on his
arm and drew him away:

"She must have as little to disturb her as possible, Mr. Ridley. The
case is serious."

"Where is Dr. Hillhouse? Why did not he come?" demanded Mr. Ridley.

"He will be here after a while. It is too early for him," replied
Dr. Angier.

"He must come now. Go for him at once, doctor."

"If you say so," returned Doctor Angier, with some coldness of
manner; "but I cannot tell how soon he will be here. He does not go
out until after eight or nine o'clock, and there are two or three
pressing cases besides this."

"I will go," said Mr. Ridley. "Don't think me rude or uncourteous,
Dr. Angier. I am like one distracted. Stay here until I get back. I
will bring Dr. Hillhouse."

"Take my carriage--it is at the door; and say to Dr. Hillhouse from
me that I would like him to come immediately," Dr. Angier replied to
this.

Mr. Ridley ran down stairs, and springing into the carriage, ordered
the driver to return with all possible speed to the office. Dr.
Hillhouse was in bed, but rose on getting the summons from Dr.
Angier and accompanied Mr. Ridley. He did not feel in a pleasant
humor. The night's indulgence in wine and other allurements of the
table had not left his head clear nor his nerves steady for the
morning. A sense of physical discomfort made him impatient and
irritable. At first all the conditions of this case were not clear
to him; but as his thought went back to the incidents of the night,
and he remembered not only seeing Mr. Ridley in considerable
excitement from drink, but hearing it remarked upon by one or two
persons who were familiar with his life at Washington, the truth
dawned upon his mind, and he said abruptly, with considerable
sternness of manner and in a quick voice:

"At what time did you get home last night?"

Ridley made no reply.

"Or this morning? It was nearly midnight when _I_ left, and you were
still there, and, I am sorry to say, not in the best condition for
meeting a sick wife at home. If there is anything seriously wrong in
this case, the responsibility lies, I am afraid, at your door, sir."

They were in the carriage, moving rapidly. Mr. Ridley sat-with his
head drawn down and bent a little forward; not answering, Dr.
Hillhouse said no more. On arriving at Mr. Ridley's residence, he
met Dr. Angier, with whom he held a brief conference before seeing
his patient. He found her in no favorable condition. The fever was
not so intense as Dr. Angier had found it on his arrival, but its
effect on the brain was more marked.

"Too much time has been lost." Dr. Hillhouse spoke aside to his
assistant a's they sat together watching carefully every symptom of
their patient.

"I sent for you before ten o'clock last night," said the nurse, who
overheard the remark and wished to screen herself from any blame.

Dr. Hillhouse did not reply.

"I knew there was danger," pursued the nurse. "Oh, doctor, if you
had only come when I sent for you! I waited and waited until after
midnight."

The doctor growled an impatient response, but so muttered and
mumbled the words that the nurse could not make them out. Mr. Ridley
was in the room, standing with folded arms a little way from the
bed, stern and haggard, with wild, congested eyes and closely shut
mouth, a picture of anguish, fear and remorse.

The two physicians remained with Mrs. Ridley for over twenty minutes
before deciding on their line of treatment. A prescription was then
made, and careful instructions given to the nurse.

"I will call again in the course of two or three hours," said Dr.
Hillhouse, on going away. "Should any thing unfavorable occur, send
to the office immediately."

"Doctor!" Mr. Ridley laid his hand on the arm of Dr. Hillhouse.
"What of my wife?" There was a frightened look in his pale, agitated
face. His voice shook.

"She is in danger," replied the doctor.

"But you know what to do? You can control the disease? You have had
such cases before?"

"I will do my best," answered the doctor, trying to move on; but Mr.
Ridley clutched his arm tightly and held him fast:

"Is it--is it--puer-p-p--" His voice shook so that he could not
articulate the word that was on his tongue.

"I am afraid so," returned the doctor.

A deep groan broke from the lips of Mr. Ridley. His hand dropped
from the arm of Dr. Hillhouse and he stood trembling from head to
foot, then cried out in a voice of unutterable despair:

"From heaven down to hell in one wild leap! God help me!"

Dr. Hillhouse was deeply moved at this. He had felt stern and angry,
ready each moment to accuse and condemn, but the intense emotion
displayed by the husband shocked, subdued and changed his tone of
feeling.

"You must calm, yourself, my dear sir," he said. "The case looks
bad, but I have seen recovery in worse cases than this. We will do
our best. But remember that you have duties and responsibilities
that must not fail."

"Whatsoever in me lies, doctor," answered Mr. Ridley, with a sudden
calmness that seemed supernatural, "you may count on my doing. If
she dies, I am lost." There was a deep solemnity in his tones as he
uttered this last sentence. "You see, sir," he added, "what I have
at stake."

"Just for the present little more can be done than to follow the
prescriptions we have given and watch their effect on the patient,"
returned Dr. Hillhouse. "If any change occurs, favorable or
unfavorable, let us know. If your presence in her room should excite
or disturb her in any way, you must prudently abstain from going
near her."

The two physicians went away with but little hope in their hearts
for the sick woman. Whatever the exciting cause or causes might have
been, the disease which had taken hold of her with unusual violence
presented already so fatal a type that the issue was very doubtful.






CHAPTER VIII.





"IT is too late, I am afraid," said Dr. Hillhouse as the two
physicians rode away, "The case ought to have been seen last night.
I noticed the call when I came home from Mr. Birtwell's, but the
storm was frightful, and I did not feel like going out again. In
fact, if the truth must be told, I hardly gave the matter a thought.
I saw the call, but its importance did not occur to me. Late hours,
suppers and wine do not always leave the head as clear as it should
be."

"I do not like the looks of things," returned Dr. Angier. "All the
symptoms are bad."

"Yes, very bad. I saw Mrs. Ridley yesterday morning, and found her
doing well. No sign of fever or any functional disturbance. She must
have had some shock or exposure to cold."

"Her husband was out all night. I learned that much from the nurse,"
replied Dr. Angier. "When the storm became violent, which was soon
after ten o'clock, she grew restless and disturbed, starting up and
listening as the snow dashed on the windowpanes and the wind roared
angrily. 'I could not keep her down,' said the nurse. 'She would
spring up in bed, throw off the clothes and sit listening, with a
look of anxiety and dread on her face. The wind came in through
every chink and crevice, chilling the room in spite of all I could
do to keep it warm. I soon saw, from the color that began coming
into her face and from the brightness in her eyes, that fever had
set in. I was alarmed, and sent for the doctor.'"

"And did this go on all night?" asked Dr. Hillhouse.

"Yes. She never closed her eyes except in intervals of feverish
stupor, from which she would start up and cry out for her husband,
who was, she imagined, in some dreadful peril."

"Bad! bad!" muttered Dr. Hillhouse. "There'll be a death, I fear,
laid at Mr. Birtwell's door."

"I don't understand you," said his companion, in a tone of surprise.

"Mr. Ridley, as I have been informed," returned Dr. Hillhouse, "has
been an intemperate man. After falling very low, he made an earnest
effort to reform, and so far got the mastery of his appetite as to
hold it in subjection. Such men are always in danger, as you and I
very well know. In nine cases out of ten--or, I might say, in
ninety-nine cases in a hundred--to taste again is to fall. It is
like cutting the chain that holds a wild beast. The bound but not
dead appetite springs into full vigor again, and surprised
resolution is beaten down and conquered. To invite such a man to, an
entertainment where wines and liquors are freely dispensed is to put
a human soul in peril."

"Mr. Birtwell may not have known anything about him," replied Dr.
Angier.

"All very true. But there is one thing he did know."

"What?"

"That he could not invite a company of three hundred men and women
to his house, though he selected them from the most refined and
intelligent circles in our city, and give them intoxicating drinks
as freely as he did last night, without serious harm. In such
accompany there will be some, like Mr. Ridley, to whom the cup of
wine offered in hospitality will be a cup of cursing. Good
resolutions will be snapped like thread in a candle-flame, and men
who came sober will go away, as from any other drinking-saloon,
drunk, as he went out last night."

"Drinking-saloon! You surprise me, doctor."

"I feel bitter this morning; and when the bitterness prevails, I am
apt to call things by strong names. Yes, I say drinking-saloon,
Doctor Angier. What matters it in the dispensation whether you give
away or sell the liquor, whether it be done over a bar or set out
free to every guest in a merchant's elegant banqueting-room? The one
is as much a liquor-saloon as the other. Men go away from one, as
from the other, with heads confused and steps unsteady and good
resolutions wrecked by indulgence. Knowing that such things must
follow; that from every fashionable entertainment some men, and
women too, go away weaker and in more danger than when they came;
that boys and young men are tempted to drink and the feet of some
set in the ways of ruin; that health is injured and latent diseases
quickened into force; that evil rather than good flows from
them,--knowing all this, I say, can any man who so turns his house,
for a single evening, into a drinking-saloon--I harp on the words,
you see, for I am feeling bitter--escape responsibility? No man goes
blindly in this way."

"Taking your view of the case," replied Dr. Angier, "there may be
another death laid at the door of Mr. Birtwell."

"Whose?" Dr. Hillhouse turned quickly to his assistant. They had
reached home, and were standing in their office.

"Nothing has been heard of Archie Voss since he left Mr. Birtwell's
last night, and his poor mother is lying insensible, broken down by
her fears."

"Oh, what of her? I was called for in the night, and you went in my
place."

"I found Mrs. Voss in a state of coma, from which she had only
partially recovered when I left at daylight. Mr. Voss is in great
anxiety about his son, who has never stayed away all night before,
except with the knowledge of his parents."

"Oh, that will all come right," said Dr. Hillhouse. "The young man
went home, probably, with some friend. Had too much to drink, it may
be, and wanted to sleep it off before coming into his mother's
pressence."

"There is no doubt about his having drank too much," returned Dr.
Angier. "I saw him going along the hall toward the street door in
rather a bad way. He had his overcoat on and his hat in his hand."

"Was any one with him?"

"I believe not. I think he went out alone."

"Into that dreadful storm?"

"Yes."

The countenance of Dr. Hillhouse became very grave:

"And has not been heard of since?"

"No."

"Have the police been informed about it?"

"Yes. The police have had the matter in hand for several hours, but
at the time I left not the smallest clue had been found."

"Rather a bad look," said Dr. Hillhouse. "What does Mr. Voss say
about it?"

"His mind seems to dwell on two theories--one that Archie, who had a
valuable diamond pin and a gold watch, may have wandered into some
evil neighborhood, bewildered by the storm, and there been set upon
and robbed--murdered perhaps. The other is that he has fallen in
some out-of-the-way place, overcome by the cold, and lies buried in
the snow. The fact that no police-officer reports having seen him or
any one answering to his description during the night awakens the
gravest fears."

"Still," replied Dr. Hillhouse, "it may all come out right. He may
have gone to a hotel. There are a dozen theories to set against
those of his friends."

After remaining silent for several moments, he said:

"The boy had been drinking too much?"

"Yes; and I judge from, his manner, when I saw him on his way to the
street, that he was conscious of his condition and ashamed of it. He
went quietly along, evidently trying not to excite observation, but
his steps were unsteady and his sight not true, for in trying to
thread his way along the hall he ran against one and another, and
drew the attention he was seeking to avoid."

"Poor fellow!" said Dr. Hillhouse, with genuine pity. "He was always
a nice boy. If anything has happened to him, I wouldn't give a dime
for the life of his mother."

"Nor I. And even as it is, the shock already received may prove
greater than her exhausted system can bear. I think you had better
see her, doctor, as early as possible."

"There were no especially bad symptoms when you left, beyond the
state of partial coma?"

"No. Her respiration had become easy, and she presented the
appearance of one in a quiet sleep."

"Nature is doing all for her that can be done," returned Dr.
Hillhouse. "I will see her as early as practicable. It's unfortunate
that we have these two cases on our hands just at this time, and
most unfortunate of all that I should have been compelled to go out
so early this morning. That doesn't look right."

And the doctor held up his hand, which showed a nervous
unsteadiness.

"It will pass off after you have taken breakfast."

"I hope so. Confound these parties! I should not have gone last
night, and if I'd given the matter due consideration would have
remained at home."

"Why so?"

"You know what that means as well as I do;" and Dr. Hillhouse held
up his tremulous hand again. "We can't take wine freely late at
night and have our nerves in good order next morning. A life may
depend on a steady hand to-day."

"It will all pass off at breakfast-time. Your good cup of coffee
will make everything all right."

"Perhaps yea, perhaps nay," was answered. "I forgot myself last
night, and accepted too many wine compliments. It was first this one
and then that one, until, strong as my head is, I got more into it
than should have gone there. We are apt to forget ourselves on these
occasions. If I had only taken a glass or two, it would have made
little difference. But my system was stimulated beyond its wont,
and, I fear, will not be in the right tone to-day."

"You will have to bring it up, then, doctor," said the assistant.
"To touch that work with an unsteady hand might be death."

"A glass or two of wine will do it; but when I operate, I always
prefer to have my head clear. Stimulated nerves are not to be
depended upon, and the brain that has wine in it is never a sure
guide. A surgeon must see at the point of his instrument; and if
there be a mote or any obscurity in his mental vision, his hand,
instead of working a cure, may bring disaster."

"You operate at twelve?"

"Yes."

"You will be all right enough by that time; but it will not do to
visit many patients. I am sorry about this case of child-bed fever;
but I will see it again immediately after breakfast, and report."

While they were still talking the bell rang violently, and in a few
moments Mr. Ridley came dashing into the office. His face wore a
look of the deepest distress.

"Oh, doctor, he exclaimed can't you do something for my wife? She'll
die if you don't. Oh, do go to her again!"

"Has any change taken place since we left?" asked Dr. Hillhouse,
with a professional calmness it required some effort to assume.

"She is in great distress, moaning and sobbing and crying out as if
in dreadful pain, and she doesn't know anything you say to her."

The two physicians looked at each other with sober faces.

"You'd better see her again," said Dr. Hillhouse, speaking to his assistant.

"No, no, no, Dr. Hillhouse! You must see her yourself. It is a case
of life and death!" cried out the distracted husband. "The
responsibility is yours, and I must and will hold you to that
responsibility. I placed my wife in your charge, not in that of this
or any other man."

Mr. Ridley was beside himself with fear. At first Dr. Hillhouse felt
like resenting this assault, but he controlled himself.

"You forget yourself, Mr. Ridley," he answered in a repressed voice.
"We do not help things by passion or intemperance of language. I saw
your wife less than half an hour ago, and after giving the utmost
care to the examination of her case made the best prescription in my
power. There has not been time for the medicines to act yet. I know
how troubled you must feel, and can pardon your not very courteous
bearing; but there are some things that can and some things that
cannot be done. There are good reasons why it will not be right for
me to return to your house now--reasons affecting the safety, it may
be the life, of another, while my not going back with you can make
no difference to Mrs. Ridley. Dr. Angier is fully competent to
report on her condition, and I can decide on any change of treatment
that may be required as certainly as if I saw her myself. Should he
find any change for the worse, I will consider it my duty to see her
without delay."

"Don't neglect her, for God's sake, doctor!" answered Mr. Ridley, in
a pleading voice. His manner had grown subdued. "Forgive my seeming
discourtesy. I am wellnigh distracted. If I lose her, I lose my hold
on everything. Oh, doctor, you cannot know how much is at stake. God
help me if she dies!"

"My dear sir, nothing in our power to do shall be neglected. Dr.
Angier will go back with you; and if, on his return, I am satisfied
that there is a change for the worse, I will see your wife without a
moment's delay. And in the mean time, if you wish to call in another
physician, I shall be glad to have you do so. Fix the time for
consultation at any hour before half-past ten o'clock, and I will
meet him. After that I shall be engaged professionally for two or
three hours."

Dr. Angier returned with Mr. Ridley, and Dr. Hillhouse went to his
chamber to make ready for breakfast. His hands were so unsteady as
he made his toilette for the day that, in the face of what he had
said to his assistant only a little while before, he poured himself
a glass of wine and drank it off, remarking aloud as he did so, as
if apologizing for the act to some one invisibly present:

"I can't let this go on any longer."

The breakfast-bell rang, and the doctor sat down to get the better
nerve-sustainer of a good meal. But even as he reached his hand for
the fragrant coffee that his wife had poured for him, he felt a
single dull throb in one of his temples, and knew too well its
meaning. He did not lift the coffee to his mouth, but sat with a
grave face and an unusually quiet manner. He had made a serious
mistake, and he knew it. That glass of wine had stimulated the
relaxed nerves of his stomach too suddenly, and sent a shock to the
exhausted brain. A slight feeling of nausea was perceived and then
came another throb stronger than the first, and with a faint
suggestion of pain. This was followed by a sense of physical
depression and discomfort.

"What's the matter, doctor?" asked his wife, who saw something
unusual in his manner.

"A feeling here that I don't just like," he replied, touching his
temple with a finger.

"Not going to have a headache?"

"I trust not. It would be a bad thing for me today."

He slowly lifted his cup of coffee and sipped a part of it.

"Late suppers and late hours may do for younger people," said Mrs.
Hillhouse. "_I_ feel wretched this morning, and am not surprised
that your nerves are out of order, nor that you should be threatened
with headache."

The doctor did not reply. He sipped his coffee again, but without
apparent relish, and, instead of eating anything, sat in an
unusually quiet manner and with a very sober aspect of countenance.

"I don't want a mouthful of breakfast," said Mrs. Hillhouse, pushing
away her plate.

"Nor I," replied the doctor; "but I can't begin to-day on an empty
stomach."

And he tried to force himself to take food, but made little progress
in the effort.

"It's dreadful about Archie Voss," said Mrs. Hillhouse.

"Oh he'll come up all right," returned her husband, with some
impatience in his voice.

"I hope so. But if he were my son, I'd rather see him in his grave
than as I saw him last night."

"It's very easy to talk in that way; but if Archie were your son,
you'd not be very long in choosing between death and a glass or two
of wine more than he had strength to carry."

"If he were my son," replied the doctor's wife, "I would do all in
my power to keep him away from entertainments where liquor is served
in such profusion. The danger is too great."

"He would have to take his chances with the rest," replied the
doctor. "All that we could possibly do would be to teach him
moderation and self-denial."

"If there is little moderation and self-denial among the full-grown
men and women who are met on these occasions, what can be expected
from lads and young men?"

The doctor shrugged his shoulders, but made no reply.

"We cannot shut our eyes to the fact," continued his wife, "that
this free dispensation of wine to old and young is an evil of great
magnitude, and that it is doing a vast amount of harm."

The doctor still kept silent. He was not in a mood for discussing
this or any other social question. His mind was going in another
direction, and his thoughts were troubling him. Dr. Hillhouse was a
surgeon of great experience, and known throughout the country for
his successful operations in some of the most difficult and
dangerous cases with which the profession has to deal. On this
particular day, at twelve o'clock, he had to perform an operation of
the most delicate nature, involving the life or death of a patient.

He might well feel troubled, for he knew, from signs too well
understood, that when twelve o'clock came, and his patient lay
helpless and unconscious before him, his hand would not be steady
nor his brain, clear. Healthy food would not restore the natural
vigor which stimulation had weakened, for he had no appetite for
food. His stomach turned away from it with loathing.

By this time the throb in his temple had become a stroke of pain.
While still sitting at the breakfast-table Dr. Angier returned from
his visit to Mrs. Ridley. Dr. Hillhouse saw by the expression of his
face that he did not bring a good report.

"How is she?" he asked.

"In a very bad way," replied Dr. Angier.

"New symptoms?"

"Yes."

"What?"

"Intense pain, rigors, hurried respiration and pulse up to a hundred
and twenty. It looks like a case of puerperal peritonitis."

Dr. Hillhouse started from the table; the trouble on his face grew
deeper.

"You had better see her with as little delay as possible," said Dr.
Angier.

"Did you make any new prescription?"

"No."

Dr. Hillhouse shut his lips tightly and knit his brows. He stood
irresolute for several moments.

"Most unfortunate!" he ejaculated. Then, going into his office, he
rang the bell and ordered his carriage brought round immediately.

Dr. Angier had made no exaggerated report of Mrs. Ridley's
condition. Dr. Hillhouse found that serious complications were
rapidly taking place, and that all the symptoms indicated
inflammation of the peritoneum. The patient was in great pain,
though with less cerebral disturbance than when he had seen her
last. There was danger, and he knew it. The disease had taken on a
form that usually baffles the skill of our most eminent physicians,
and Dr. Hillhouse saw little chance of anything but a fatal
termination. He could do nothing except to palliate as far as
possible the patient's intense suffering and endeavor to check
farther complications. But he saw little to give encouragement.

Mr. Ridley, with pale, anxious face, and eyes in which, were
pictured the unutterable anguish of his soul, watched Dr. Hillhouse
as he sat by his wife's bedside with an eager interest and suspense
that was painful to see. He followed him when he left the room, and
his hand closed on his arm with a spasm as the door shut behind
them.

"How is she, doctor?" he asked, in a hoarse, panting whisper.

"She is very sick, Mr. Ridley," replied Dr. Hillhouse. "It would be
wrong to deceive you."

The pale, haggard face of Mr. Ridley grew whiter.

"Oh, doctor," he gasped, "can nothing be done?"

"I think we had better call in another physician," replied the
doctor. "In the multitude of counselors there is wisdom. Have you
any choice?"

But Mr. Ridley had none.

"Shall it be Dr. Ainsworth? He has large experience in this class of
diseases."

"I leave it entirely with you, Dr. Hillhouse. Get the best advice
and help the city affords, and for God's sake save my wife."

The doctor went away, and Mr. Ridley, shaking with nervous tremors,
dropped weak and helpless into a chair and bending forward until his
head rested on his knees, sat crouching down, an image of suffering
and despair.






CHAPTER IX.





"ELLIS, my son."

There was a little break and tremor in the voice. The young man
addressed was passing the door of his mother's room, and paused on
hearing his name.

"What is it?" he asked, stepping inside and looking curiously into
his mother's face, where he saw a more than usually serious
expression.

"Sit down, Ellis; I want to say a word to you before going to Mrs.
Birtwell's."

The lady had just completed her toilette, and was elegantly dressed
for an evening party. She was a handsome, stately-looking woman,
with dark hair through which ran many veins of silver, large,
thoughtful eyes and a mouth of peculiar sweetness.

The young man took a chair, and his mother seated herself in front
of him.

"Ellis."

The tremor still remained in her voice.

"Well, what is it?"

The young man assumed a careless air, but was not at ease.

"There is a good old adage, my son, the remembrance of which Has
saved many a one in the hour of danger: _Forewarned, forearmed_."

"Oh, then you think we are going into danger to-night?" he answered,
in a light tone.

"I am sorry to say that we are going where some will find themselves
in great peril," replied the mother, her manner growing more
serious; "and it is because of this that I wish to say a word or two
now."

"Very well, mother; say on."

He moved uneasily in his chair, and showed signs of impatience.

"You must take it kindly, Ellis, and remember that it is your mother
who is speaking, your best and truest friend in all the world."

"Good Heavens, mother! what are you driving at? One would think we
were going into a howling wilderness, among savages and wild beasts,
instead of into a company of the most cultured and refined people in
a Christian city."

"There is danger everywhere, my son," the mother replied, with
increasing sobriety of manner, "and the highest civilization of the
day has its perils as well as the lowest conditions of society. The
enemy hides in ambush everywhere--in the gay drawing-room as well as
in the meanest hovel."

She paused, and mother and son looked into each other's faces in
silence for several moments. Then the former said:

"I must speak plainly, Ellis. You are not as guarded as you should
be on these occasions. You take wine too freely."

"Oh, mother!" His voice was, half surprised, half angry. A red flush
mounted to cheeks and forehead. Rising, he walked the room in an
agitated manner, and then came and sat down. The color had gone out
of his face:

"How could you say so, mother? You do me wrong. It is a mistake."

The lady shook her head:

"No, my son, it is true. A mother's eyes rarely deceive her. You
took wine too freely both at Mrs. Judson's and Mrs. Ingersoll's, and
acted so little like my gentlemanly, dignified son that my cheeks
burned and my heart ached with mortification. I saw in other eyes
that looked at you both pity and condemnation. Ah, my son! there was
more of bitterness in that for a mother's heart than you will ever
comprehend."

Her voice broke into a sob.

"My dear, dear mother," returned the young man, exhibiting much
distress, "you and others exaggerated what you saw. I might have
been a trifle gay, and who is not after a glass or two of champagne?
I was no gayer than the rest. When young people get together, and
one spurs another on they are apt to grow a little wild. But to call
high spirits, even noisy high spirits, intoxication is unjust. You
must not be too hard on me, mother, nor let your care for your son
lead you into needless apprehensions. I am in no danger here. Set
your heart at rest on that score."

But this was impossible. Mrs. Whitford knew there was danger, and
that of the gravest character. Two years before, her son had come
home from college, where he had graduated with all the honors her
heart could desire, a pure, high-toned young man, possessing talents
of no common order. His father wished him to study law; and as his
own inclinations led in that direction, he went into the office of
one of the best practitioners in the city, and studied for his
profession with the same thoroughness that had distinguished him
while in college. He had just been admitted to the bar.

For the first year after his return home Mrs. Whitford saw nothing
in her son to awaken uneasiness. His cultivated tastes and love of
intellectual things held him above the enervating influences of the
social life into which he was becoming more and more drawn. Her
first feeling of uneasiness came when, at a large party given by one
of her most intimate friends, she heard his voice ring out suddenly
in the supper-room. Looking down the table, she saw him with a glass
of champagne in his hand, which he was flourishing about in rather
an excited way. There was a gay group of young girls around him, who
laughed merrily at the sport he made. Mrs. Whitford's pleasure was
gone for that evening. A shadow came down on the bright future of
her son--a future to which her heart had turned with such proud
anticipations. She was oppressed by a sense of humiliation. Her son
had stepped down from his pedestal of dignified self-respect, and
stood among the common herd of vulgar young men to whom in her eyes
he had always been superior.

But greater than her humiliation were the fears of Mrs. Whitford. A
thoughtful and observant woman, she had reason for magnifying the
dangers that lay in the path of her son. The curse of more than one
member of both her own and husband's family had been intemperance.
While still a young man her father had lost his self-control, and
her memory of him was a shadow of pain and sorrow. He died at an
early age, the victim of an insatiable and consuming desire for
drink. Her husband's father had been what is called a "free
liver"--that is, a man who gave free indulgence to his appetites,
eating and drinking to excess, and being at all times more or less
under the influence of wine or spirits.

It was the hereditary taint that Mrs. Whitford dreaded. Here lay the
ground of her deepest anxiety. She had heard and thought enough on
this subject to know that parents transmit to their children an
inclination to do the things they have done from habit--strong or
weak, according to the power of the habit indulged. If the habit be
an evil one, then the children are in more than common danger, and
need the wisest care and protection. She knew, also, from reading
and observation, that an evil habit of mind or body which did not
show itself in the second generation would often be reproduced in
the third, and assert a power that it required the utmost strength
of will and the greatest watchfulness to subdue.

And so, when her son, replying to her earnest warning, said, "I am
in no danger. Set your heart at rest," she knew better--knew that a
deadly serpent was in the path he was treading. And she answered him
with increasing earnestness:

"The danger may be far greater than you imagine, Ellis. It _is_
greater than you imagine."

Her voice changed as she uttered the last sentence into a tone that
was almost solemn.

"You are talking wildly," returned the young man, "and pay but a
poor compliment to your son's character and strength of will. In
danger of becoming a sot!--for that is what you mean. If you were
not my mother, I should be angry beyond self-control."

"Ellis," said Mrs. Whitford, laying her hand upon the arm of her son
and speaking with slow impressiveness, "I am older than you are by
nearly thirty years, have seen more of life than you have, _and know
some things that you do not know._ I have your welfare at heart more
deeply than any other being except God. I know you better in some
things than you know yourself. Love makes me clear-seeing. And this
is why I am in such earnest with you to-night. Ellis, I want a
promise from you. I ask it in the name of all that is dearest to
you--in my name--in the name of Blanche--in the name of God!"

All the color had, gone out of Mrs. Whitford's face, and she stood
trembling before her son.

"You frighten me, mother," exclaimed the young man. "What do you
mean by all this? Has any one been filling your mind with lies about
me?"

"No; none would dare speak to me of you in anything but praise, But
I want you to promise to-night, Ellis. I must have that, and then my
heart will be at ease. It will be a little thing for you, but for me
rest and peace and confidence in the place of terrible anxieties."

"Promise! What? Some wild fancies have taken hold of you."

"No wild fancies, but a fear grounded in things of which I would not
speak. Ellis, I want you to give up the use of wine."

The young man did not answer immediately. All the nervous
restlessness he had exhibited died out in a moment, and he stood
very still, the ruddy marks of excitement going out of his face. His
eyes were turned from his mother and cast upon the floor.

"And so it has come to this," he said, huskily, and in a tone of
humiliation. "My mother thinks me in danger of becoming a
drunkard--thinks me so weak that I cannot be trusted to take even a
glass of wine."

"Ellis!" Mrs. Whitford again laid her hand upon the arm of her son.
"Ellis," her voice had fallen to deep whisper, "if I must speak, I
must. There are ancestors who leave fatal legacies to the
generations that come after them, and you are one accursed by such a
legacy. There is a taint in your blood, a latent fire that a spark
may kindle into a consuming flame."

She panted as she spoke with hurried utterance. "My father!"
exclaimed the young man, with an indignant flash in his eyes.

"No, no, no! I don't mean that. But there is a curse that descends
to the third and fourth generation," replied Mrs. Whitford, "and you
have the legacy of that curse. But it will be harmless unless with
your own hand you drag it down, and this is why I ask you to abstain
from wine. Others may be safe, but for you there is peril."

"A scarecrow, a mere fancy, a figment of some fanatic's brain;" and
Ellis Whitford rejected the idea in a voice full of contempt.

But the pallor and solemnity of his mother's face warned him that
such a treatment of her fears could not allay them. Moreover, the
hint of ancestral disgrace had shocked his family pride.

"A sad and painful truth," Mrs. Whitford returned, "and one that it
will be folly for you to ignore. You do not stand in the same
freedom in which many others stand. That is your misfortune. But you
can no more disregard the fact than can one born with a hereditary
taint of consumption in his blood disregard the loss of health and
hope to escape the fatal consequences. There is for every one of us
'a sin that doth easily beset,' a hereditary inclination that must
be guarded and denied, or it will grow and strengthen until it
becomes a giant to enslave us. Where your danger lies I have said;
and if you would be safe, set bars and bolts to the door of
appetite, and suffer not your enemy to cross the threshold, of
life."

Mrs. Whitford spoke with regaining calmness, but in tones of solemn
admonition.

A long silence followed, broken at length by the young man, who
said, in a choking, depressed voice that betrayed a quaver of
impatience:

"I'm sorry for all this. That your fears are groundless I know, but
you are none the less tormented by them. What am I to do? To spare
you pain I would sacrifice almost anything, but this humiliation is
more than I am strong enough to encounter. If, as you say, there has
been intemperance in our family, it is not a secret locked up in
your bosom. Society knows all about the ancestry of its members, who
and what the fathers and grandfathers were, and we have not escaped
investigation. Don't touch wine, you say. Very well. I go to Mrs.
Birtwell's to-night. Young and old, men and women, all are
partakers, but I stand aloof--I, of all the guests, refuse the
hospitality I have pretended to accept. Can I do this without
attracting attention or occasioning remark? No; and what will be
said? Simply this--that I know my danger and am afraid; that there
is in my blood the hereditary taint of drunkenness, and that I dare
not touch a glass of wine. Mother, I am not strong enough to brave
society on such an issue, and a false one at that. To fear and fly
does not belong to my nature. A coward I despise. If there is danger
in my way and it is right for me to go forward in that way, I will
walk steadily on, and fight if I must. I am not a craven, but a man.
If the taint of which you speak is in my blood, I will extinguish
it. If I am in danger, I will not save myself by flight, but by
conquest. The taint shall not go down to another generation; it
shall be removed in this."

He spoke with a fine enthusiasm kindling over his handsome face, and
his mother's heart beat with a pride that for the moment was
stronger than fear.

"Ask of me anything except to give up my self-respect and my
manliness," he added. "Say that you wish me to remain at home, and I
will not go to the party."

"No. I do not ask that. I wish you to go. But--"

"If I go, I must do as the rest, and you must have faith in me.
Forewarned, forearmed. I will heed your admonition."

So the interview ended, and mother and son went to the grand
entertainment at Mr. Birtwell's. Ellis did mean to heed his mother's
admonition. What she had said, about the danger in which he stood
had made a deeper impression on him than Mrs. Whitford thought. But
he did not propose to heed by abstinence, but by moderation. He
would be on guard and always ready for the hidden foe, if such a foe
really existed anywhere but in his mother's fancy.

"Ah, Mrs. Whitford! Glad to see you this evening;" and the Rev. Mr.
Brantley Elliott gave the lady a graceful and cordial bow. "Had the
pleasure of meeting your son a few moments ago--a splendid young
man, if you will pardon me for saying so. How much a year has
improved him!"

Mrs. Whitford bowed her grateful acknowledgment.

"Just been admitted to the bar, I learn," said Mr. Elliott.

"Yes, sir. He has taken his start in life."

"And will make his mark, or I am mistaken. You have reason to feel
proud of him, ma'am."

"That she has," spoke out Dr. Hillhouse, who came up at the moment.
"When so many of our young men are content to be idle drones--to let
their fathers achieve eminence or move the world by the force of
thought and will--it is gratifying to see one of their number taking
his place in the ranks and setting his face toward conquest. When
the sons of two-thirds of our rich men are forgotten, or remembered
only as idlers or nobodies, or worse, your son will stand among the
men who leave their mark upon the generations."

"If he escapes the dangers that lie too thickly in the way of all
young men," returned Mrs. Whitford, speaking almost involuntarily of
what was in her heart, and in a voice that betrayed more concern
than she had meant to express.

The doctor gave a little shrug, but replied:

"His earnest purpose in life will be his protection, Mrs. Whitford.
Work, ambition, devotion to a science or profession have in them an
aegis of safety. The weak and the idle are most in danger."

"It is wrong, I have sometimes thought," said Mrs. Whitford speaking
both to the physician and the clergyman, "for society to set so many
temptations before its young men--the seed, as some one has forcibly
said, of the nation's future harvest."

"Society doesn't care much for anything but its own gratification,"
replied Dr. Hillhouse, "and says as plainly as actions can do it
'After me the deluge.'"

"Rather hard on society," remarked Mr. Elliott.

"Now take, for instance, its drinking customs, its toleration and
participation in the freest public and private dispensation of
intoxicating liquors to all classes, weak or strong, young or old.
Is there not danger in this--great danger? I think I understand you,
Mrs. Whitford."

"Yes, doctor, you understand me;" and dropping her voice to a lower
tone, Mrs. Whitford added: "There are wives and mothers and sisters
not a few here to-night whose hearts, though they may wear smiles on
their faces, are ill at ease, and some of them will go home from
these festivities sadder than when they came."

"Right about that," said the doctor to himself as he turned away, a
friend of Mrs. Whitford's having come up at the moment and
interrupted the conversation--" right about that; and you, I greatly
fear, will be one of the number."

"Our friend isn't just herself to-night," remarked Mr. Elliott as he
and Dr. Hillhouse moved across the room. "A little dyspeptic, maybe,
and so inclined to look on the dark side of things. She has little
cause, I should think, to be anxious for her own son or husband. I
never saw Mr. Whitford the worse for wine; and as for Ellis, his
earnest purpose in life, as you so well said just now, will hold him
above the reach of temptation."

"On the contrary, she has cause for great anxiety," returned Dr.
Hillhouse.

"You surprise me. What reason have you for saying this?"

"A professional one--a reason grounded in pathology."

"Ah?" and Mr. Elliott looked gravely curious.

"The young man inherits, I fear, a depraved appetite."

"Oh no. I happen to be too well acquainted with his father to accept
that view of the case."

"His father is well enough," replied Dr. Hillhouse, "but as much
could not be said of either of his grandfathers while living. Both
drank freely, and one of them died a confirmed drunkard."

"If the depraved appetite has not shown itself in the children, it
will hardly trouble the grandchildren," said Mr. Elliott. "Your fear
is groundless, doctor. If Ellis were my son, I should feel no
particular anxiety about him."

"If he were your son," replied Dr. Hillhouse, "I am not so sure
about your feeling no concern. Our personal interest in a thing is
apt to give it a new importance. But you are mistaken as to the
breaking of hereditary influences in the second generation. Often
hereditary peculiarities will show themselves in the third and
fourth generation. It is no uncommon thing to see the grandmother's
red hair reappear in her granddaughter, though her own child's hair
was as black as a raven's wing. A crooked toe, a wart, a
malformation, an epileptic tendency, a swart or fair complexion, may
disappear in all the children of a family, and show itself again in
the grand-or great-grandchildren. Mental and moral conditions
reappear in like manner. In medical literature we have many curious
illustrations of this law of hereditary transmission and its strange
freaks and anomalies."

"They are among the curiosities of your literature," said Mr.
Elliott, speaking as though not inclined to give much weight to the
doctor's views--"the exceptional and abnormal things that come under
professional notice."

"The law of hereditary transmission," replied Dr. Hillhouse, "is as
certain in its operation as the law of gravity. You may disturb or
impede or temporarily suspend the law, but the moment you remove the
impediment the normal action goes on, and the result is sure. Like
produces like--that is the law. Always the cause is seen in the
effect, and its character, quality and good or evil tendencies are
sure to have a rebirth and a new life. It is under the action of
this law that the child is cursed by the parent with the evil and
sensual things he has made a part of himself through long
indulgence."

There came at this moment a raid upon Mr. Elliott by three or four
ladies, members of his congregation, who surrounded him and Dr.
Hillhouse, and cut short their conversation.

Meanwhile, Ellis Whitford had already half forgotten his painful
interview with his mother in the pleasure of meeting Blanche
Birtwell, to whom he had recently become engaged. She was a pure and
lovely young woman, inheriting her mother's personal beauty and
refined tastes. She had been carefully educated and kept by her
mother as much within the sphere of home as possible and out of
society of the hoydenish girls who, moving in the so-called best
circles, have the free and easy manners of the denizens of a public
garden rather than the modest demeanor of unsullied maidenhood. She
was a sweet exception to the loud, womanish, conventional girl we
meet everywhere--on the street, in places, of public amusement and
in the drawing-room--a fragrant human flower with the bloom of
gentle girlhood on every unfolding leaf.

It was no slender tie that bound these lovers together. They had
moved toward each other, drawn by an inner attraction that was
irresistible to each; and when heart touched heart, their pulses
took a common beat. The life of each had become bound up in the
other, and their betrothal was no mere outward contract. The manly
intellect and the pure heart had recognized each other, tender love
had lifted itself to noble thought, and thought had grown stronger
and purer as it felt the warmth and life of a new and almost divine
inspiration. Ellis Whitford had risen to a higher level by virtue of
this betrothal.

They were sitting in a bay-window, out of the crowd of guests, when
a movement in the company was observed by Whitford. Knowing what it
meant, he arose and offered his arm to Blanche. As he did so he
became aware of a change in his companion, felt rather than seen;
and yet, if he had looked closely into her face, a change in its
expression would have been visible. The smile was still upon her
beautiful lips, and the light and tenderness still in her eyes, but
from both something had departed. It was as if an almost invisible
film of vapor had drifted across the sun of their lives.

In silence they moved on to the supper-room--moved with the light
and heavy-hearted, for, as Dr. Hillhouse had intimated, there were
some there to whom that supper-room was regarded with anxiety and
fear--wives and mothers and sisters who knew, alas! too well that
deadly serpents lie hidden among the flowers of every
banqueting-room.

How bright and joyous a scene it was! You did not see the trouble
that lay hidden in so many hearts; the light and glitter, the flash
and brilliancy, were too strong.

Reader, did you ever think of the power of spheres? The influence
that goes out from an individual or mass of individuals, we
mean--that subtle, invisible power that acts from one upon another,
and which when aggregated is almost irresistible? You have felt it
in a company moved by a single impulse which carried you for a time
with the rest, though all your calmer convictions were in opposition
to the movement. It has kept you silent by its oppressive power when
you should have spoken out in a ringing protest, and it has borne
you away on its swift or turbulent current when you should have
stood still and been true to right. Again, in the company of good
and true men, moved by the inspiration of some noble cause, how all
your weakness and hesitation has died out! and you have felt the
influence of that subtle sphere to which we refer.

Everywhere and at all times are we exposed to the action of these
mental and moral spheres, which act upon and impress us in thousands
of different ways, now carrying us along in some sudden public
excitement in which passion drowns the voice of reason, and now
causing us to drift in the wake of some stronger nature than our own
whose active thought holds ours in a weak, assenting bondage.

You understand what we mean. Now take the pervading sphere of an
occasion like the one we are describing, and do you not see that to
go against it is possible only to persons of decided convictions and
strong individuality? The common mass of men and women are absorbed
into or controlled by its subtle power. They can no more set
themselves against it, if they would, than against the rush of a
swiftly-flowing river. To the young it is irresistible.

As Ellis Whitford, with Blanche leaning on his arm, gained the
supper-room, he met the eyes of his mother, who was on the opposite
side of the table, and read in them a sign of warning. Did it awaken
a sense of danger and put him on his guard? No; it rather stirred a
feeling of anger. Could she not trust him among gentlemen and
ladies--not trust him with Blanche Birtwell by his side? It hurt his
pride and wounded his self-esteem.

He was in the sphere of liberty and social enjoyment and among those
who did not believe that wine was a mocker, but something to make
glad the heart and give joy to the countenance; and when it began to
flow he was among the first to taste its delusive sweets. Blanche,
for whom he poured a glass of champagne, took it from his hand, but
with only half a smile on her lips, which was veiled by something so
like pain or fear that Ellis felt as if the lights about him had
suddenly lost a portion of their brilliancy. He stood holding his
own glass, after just tasting its contents, waiting for Blanche to
raise the sparkling liquor to her lips, but she seemed like one
under the influence of a spell, not moving or responding.






CHAPTER X.





BLANCHE still held the untasted wine in her hand, when her father,
who happened to be near, filled a glass, and said as he bowed to
her:

"Your good health, my daughter; and yours, Mr. Whitford," bowing to
her companion also.

The momentary spell was broken. Blanche smiled back upon her father
and raised the glass to her lips. The lights in the room seemed to
Ellis to flash up again and blaze with a higher brilliancy. Never
had the taste of wine seemed more delicious. What a warm thrill ran
along his nerves! What a fine exhilaration quickened in his brain!
The shadow which a moment before had cast a veil over the face of
Blanche he saw no longer. It had vanished, or his vision was not now
clear enough to discern its subtle texture.

"Take good care of Blanche," said Mr. Birtwell, in a light voice.
"And you, pet, see that Mr. Whitford enjoys himself."

Blanche did not reply. Her father turned away. Eyes not veiled as
Whitford's now were would have seen that the filmy cloud which had
come over her face a little while before was less transparent, and
sensibly dimmed its brightness.

Scarcely had Mr. Birtwell left them when Mr. Elliott, who had only a
little while before heard of their engagement, said to Blanche in an
undertone, and with one of his sweet paternal smiles:

"I must take a glass of wine with you, dear, in, commemoration of
the happy event."

Mr. Elliott had not meant to include young Whitford in the
invitation. The latter had spoken to a lady acquaintance who stood
near him, and was saying a few words to her, thus disengaging
Blanche. But observing that Mr. Elliott was talking to Blanche, he
turned from the lady and joined her again. And, so Mr. Elliott had
to say:

"We are going to have a glass of wine in honor of the auspicious
event."

Three glasses were filled by the clergyman, and then he stood face
to face with the young man and maiden, and each of them, as he said
in a low, professional voice, meant for their ears alone, "Peace and
blessing, my children!" drank to the sentiment. Whitford drained his
glass, but Blanche only tasted the wine in hers.

Mr. Elliott stood for a few moments, conscious that something was
out of accord. Then he remembered his conversation with Dr.
Hillhouse a little while before, and felt an instant regret. He had
noted the manner of Whitford as he drank, and the manner of Blanche
as she put the wine to her lips. In the one case was an enjoyable
eagerness, and in the other constraint. Something in the expression
of the girl's face haunted and troubled him a long time afterward.

"Our young friend is getting rather gay," said Dr. Hillhouse to Mr.
Elliott, half an hour afterward. He referred to Ellis Whitford, who
was talking and laughing in a way that to some seemed a little too
loud and boisterous. "I'm afraid for him," he added.

"Ah, yes! I remember what you were saying about his two
grandfathers," returned the clergyman. "And you really think he may
inherit something from them?"

"Don't you?" asked the doctor.

"Well, yes, of course. But I mean an inordinate desire for drink, a
craving that makes indulgence perilous?"

"Yes; that is just what I do believe."

"If that be so, the case is a serious one. In taking wine with him a
short time ago I noticed a certain enjoyable eagerness as he held
the glass to his lips not often observed in our young men."

"You drank with him?" queried the doctor.

"Yes. He and Blanche Birtwell have recently become engaged, and I
took some wine with them in compliment."

The doctor, instead of replying, became silent and thoughtful, and
Mr. Elliott moved away among the crowd of guests.

"I am really sorry for Mrs. Whitford," said a lady with whom he soon
became engaged in conversation.

"Why so?" asked the clergyman, betraying surprise.

"What's the matter? No family trouble, I hope?"

"Very serious trouble I should call it were it my own," returned the
lady.

"I am pained to hear you speak so. What has occurred?"

"Haven't you noticed her son to-night? There! That was his laugh.
He's been drinking too much. I saw his mother looking at him a
little while ago with eyes so full of sorrow and suffering that it
made my heart ache."

"Oh, I hope it's nothing," replied Mr. Elliott. "Young men will
become a little gay on these occasions; we must expect that. All of
them don't bear wine alike. It's mortifying to Mrs. Whitford, of
course, but she's a stately woman, you know, and sensitive about
proprieties."

Mr. Elliott did not wait for the lady's answer, but turned to
address another person who came forward at the moment to speak to
him.

"Sensitive about proprieties," said the lady to herself, with some
feeling, as she stood looking down the room to where Ellis Whitford
in a group of young men and women was giving vent to his exuberant
spirits more noisily than befitted the place and occasion. "Mr.
Elliott calls things by dainty names."

"I call that disgraceful," remarked an elderly lady, in a severe
tone, as if replying to the other's thought.

"Young men will become a little gay on these occasions," said the
person to whom she had spoken, with some irony in her tone. "So Mr.
Elliott says."

"Mr. Elliott!" There was a tone of bitterness and rejection in the
speaker's voice. "Mr. Elliott had better give our young men a safer
example than he does. A little gay! A little drunk would be nearer
the truth."

"Oh dear! such a vulgar word! We don't use it in good society, you
know. It belongs to taverns and drinking-saloons--to coarse, common
people. You must say 'a little excited,' 'a little gay,' but not
drunk. That's dreadful!"

"Drunk!" said the other, with emphasis, but speaking low and for the
ear only of the lady with whom she was talking. "We understand a
great deal better the quality of a thing when we call it by its
right name. If a young man drinks wine or brandy until he becomes
intoxicated, as Whitford has done to-night, and we say he is drunk
instead of exhilarated or a little gay, we do something toward
making his conduct odious. We do not excuse, but condemn. We make it
disgraceful instead of palliating the offence."

The lady paused, when her companion said:

"Look! Blanche Birtwell is trying to quiet him. Did you know they
were engaged?"

"What!"

"Engaged."

"Then I pity her from my heart. A young man who hasn't self-control
enough to keep himself sober at an evening party can't be called a
very promising subject for a husband."

"She has placed her arm in his and is looking up into his face so
sweetly. What a lovely girl she is! There! he's quieter already; and
see, she is drawing him out of the group of young men and talking to
him in such a bright, animated way."

"Poor child! it makes my eyes wet; and this is her first humiliating
and painful duty toward her future husband. God pity and strengthen
her is my heartfelt prayer. She will have need, I fear, of more than
human help and comfort."

"You take the worst for granted?"

The lady drew a deep sigh:

"I fear the worst, and know something of what the worst means. There
are few families of any note in our city," she added, after a slight
pause, "in which sorrow has not entered through the door of
intemperance. Ah! is not the name of the evil that comes in through
this door Legion? and we throw it wide open and invite both young
and old to enter. We draw them by various allurements. We make the
way of this door broad and smooth and flowery, full of pleasantness
and enticement. We hold out our hands, we smile with encouragement,
we step inside of the door to show them the way."

In her ardor the lady half forgot herself, and stopped suddenly as
she observed that two or three of the company who stood near had
been listening.

Meantime, Blanche Birtwell had managed to get Whitford away from the
table, and was trying to induce him to leave the supper-room. She
hung on his arm and talked to him in a light, gay manner, as though
wholly unconscious of his condition. They had reached the door
leading into the hall, when Whitford stopped, and drawing back,
said:

"Oh, there's Fred Lovering, my old college friend. I didn't know he
was in the city." Then he called out, in a voice so loud as to cause
many to turn and look at him, "Fred! Fred! Why, how are you, old
boy? This is an unexpected pleasure."

The young man thus spoken to made his way through the crowd of
guests, who were closely packed together in that part of the room,
some going in and some trying to get out, and grasping the hand of
Whitford, shook it with great cordiality.

"Miss Birtwell," said the latter, introducing Blanche. "But you know
each other, I see."

"Oh yes, we are old friends. Glad to see you looking so well, Miss
Birtwell."

Blanche bowed with cold politeness, drawing a little back as she did
so, and tightening her hold on Whitford's arm.

Lovering fixed his eyes on the young lady with an admiring glance,
gazing into her face so intently that her color heightened. She
turned partly away, an expression of annoyance on her countenance,
drawing more firmly on the arm of her companion as she did so, and
taking a step toward the door. But Whitford was no longer passive to
her will.

Any one reading the face of Lovering would have seen a change in its
expression, the evidence of some quickly formed purpose, and he
would have seen also something more than simple admiration of the
beautiful girl leaning on the arm of his friend. His manner toward
Whitford became more hearty.

"My dear old friend," he said, catching up the hand he had dropped
and giving it a tighter grip than before, "this is a pleasure. How
it brings back our college days! We must have a glass of wine in
memory of the good old times. Come!"

And he moved toward the table. With an impulse she could not
restrain, Blanche drew back toward the door, pulling strongly on
Whitford's arm:

"Come, Ellis; I am faint with the heat of this room. Take me out,
please."

Whitford looked into her face, and saw that it had grown suddenly
pale. If his perceptions had not been obscured by drink, he would
have taken her out instantly. But his mind was not clear.

"Just a moment, until I can get you a glass of wine," he said,
turning hastily from her. Lovering was filling three glasses as he
reached the table. Seizing one of them, he went back quickly to
Blanche; but she waved her hand, saying: "No, no, Ellis; it isn't
wine that I need, only cooler air."

"Don't be foolish," replied Whitford, with visible impatience. "Take
a few sips of wine, and you will feel better."

Lovering, with a glass in each hand, now joined them. He saw the
change in Blanche's face, and having already observed the
exhilarated condition of Whitford, understood its meaning. Handing
the latter one of the glasses, he said:

"Here's to your good health, Miss Birtwell, and to yours, Ellis,"
drinking as he spoke. Whitford drained his glass, but Blanche did
not so much as wet her lips. Her face had grown paler.

"If you do not take me out, I must go alone," she said, in a voice
that made itself felt. There was in it a quiver of pain and a pulse
of indignation.

Lovering lost nothing of this. As his college friend made his way
from the room with Blanche on his arm, he stood for a moment in an
attitude of deep thought, then nodded two or three times and said to
himself:

"That's how the land lies. Wine in and wit out, and Blanche troubled
about it already. Engaged, they say. All right. But glass is sharp,
and love's fetters are made of silk. Will the edge be duller if the
glass is filled with wine? I trow not."

And a gleam of satisfaction lit up the young man's face.

With an effort strong and self-controlling for one so young, Blanche
Birtwell laid her hand upon her troubled heart as soon as she was
out of the supper-room, and tried to still its agitation. The color
came back to her cheeks and some of the lost brightness to her eyes,
but she was not long in discovering that the glass of wine taken
with his college friend had proved too much for the already confused
brain of her lover who began talking foolishly and acting in a way
that mortified and pained her exceedingly. She now sought to get him
into the library and out of common observation. Her father had just
received from France and England some rare books filled with art
illustrations, and she invited him to their examination. But he was
feeling too social for that.

"Why, no, pet." He made answer with a fond familiarity he would
scarcely have used if they had been alone instead of in a crowded
drawing-room, touching her cheek playfully with his fingers as he
spoke. "Not now. We'll reserve that pleasure for another time. This
is good enough for me;" and he swung his arms around and gave a
little whoop like an excited rowdy.

A deep crimson dyed for a moment the face of Blanche. In a moment
afterward it was pale as ashes. Whitford saw the death-like change,
and it partially roused him to a sense of his condition.

"Of course I'll go to the library if your heart's set on it," he
said, drawing her arm in his and taking her out of the room with a
kind of flourish. Many eyes turned on them. In some was surprise, in
some merriment and in some sorrow and pain.

"Now for the books," he cried as he placed Blanche in a large chair
at the library-table. "Where are they?"

Self-control has a masterful energy when the demand for its exercise
is imperative. The paleness went out of Blanche's face, and a tender
light came into her eyes as she looked up at Whitford and smiled on
him with loving glances.

"Sit down," she said in a firm, low, gentle voice.

The young man felt the force of her will and sat down by her side,
close to the table, on which a number of books were lying.

"I want to show you Dore's illustrations of Don Quixote;" and
Blanche opened a large folio volume.

Whitford had grown more passive. He was having a confused impression
that all was not just right with him, and that it was better to be
in the library looking over books and pictures with Blanche than in
the crowded parlors, where there was so much to excite his gayer
feelings. So he gave himself up to the will of his betrothed, and
tried to feel an interest in the pictures she seemed to admire so
much.

They had been so engaged for over twenty minutes, Whitford beginning
to grow dull and heavy as the exhilaration of wine died out, and
less responsive to the efforts made by Blanche to keep him
interested, when Lovering came into the library, and, seeing them,
said, with a spur of banter in his voice:

"Come, come, this will never do! You're a fine fellow, Whitford, and
I don't wonder that Miss Birtwell tolerates you, but monopoly is not
the word to-night. I claim the privilege of a guest and a word or
two with our fair hostess."

And he held out his arm to Blanche, who had risen from the table.
She could do no less than take it. He drew her from the room. As
they passed out of the door Blanche cast a look back at Whitford.
Those who saw it were struck by its deep concern.

"Confound his impudence!" ejaculated Ellis Whitford as he saw
Blanche vanish through the library door. Rising from the table he
stood with an irresolute air, then went slowly from the apartment
and mingled with the company, moving about in an aimless kind of
way, until he drifted again into the supper-room, the tables of
which the waiters were constantly replenishing, and toward which a
stream of guests still flowed. The company here was noisier now than
when he left it a short time before. Revelry had taken the place of
staid propriety. Glasses clinked like a chime of bells, voices ran
up into the higher keys, and the loud musical laugh of girls mingled
gaily with the deeper tones of their male companions. Young maidens
with glasses of sparkling champagne or rich brown and amber sherry
in their hands were calling young men and boys to drink with them,
and showing a freedom and abandon of manner that marked the degree
of their exhilaration. Wine does not act in one way on the brain of
a young man and in another way on the brain of a young woman. Girls
of eighteen or twenty will become as wild and free and forgetful of
propriety as young men of the same age if you bring them together at
a feast and give them wine freely.

We do not exaggerate the scene in Mr. Birtwell's supper-room, but
rather subdue the picture. As Whitford drew nigh the supper-room the
sounds of boisterous mirth struck on his ears and stirred him like
the rattle of a drum. The heaviness went out of his limbs, his pulse
beat more quickly, he felt a new life in his veins. As he passed in
his name was called in a gay voice that he did not at first
recognize, and at the same moment a handsome young girl with flushed
face and sparkling eyes came hastily toward him, and drawing her
hand in his arm, said, in a loud familiar tone:

"You shall be my knight, Sir Ellis."

And she almost dragged him down the room to where half a dozen girls
and young men were having a wordy contest about something. He was in
the midst of the group before he really understood who the young
lady was that had laid such violent hands upon him. He then
recognized her as the daughter of a well-known merchant. He had met
her a few times in company, and her bearing toward him had always
before been marked by a lady-like dignity and reserve. Now she was
altogether another being, loud, free and familiar almost to
rudeness.

"You must have some wine, Sir Knight, to give you mettle for the
conflict," she said, running to the table and filling a glass, which
she handed to him with the air of a Hebe.

Whitford did not hesitate, but raised the glass to his lips and
emptied it at a single draught.

"Now for knight or dragon, my lady fair. I am yours to do or die,"
he exclaimed, drawing up his handsome form with a mock dignity, at
which a loud cheer broke out from the group of girls and young men
that was far more befitting a tavern-saloon than a gentleman's
dining-room.

Louder and noisier this little group became, Whitford, under a fresh
supply of wine, leading in the boisterous mirth. One after another,
attracted by the gayety and laughter, joined the group, until it
numbered fifteen or twenty half-intoxicated young men and women, who
lost themselves in a kind of wild saturnalia.

It was past twelve o'clock when Mrs. Whitford entered the
dining-room, where the noise and laughter were almost deafening. Her
face was pale, her lips closely compressed and her forehead
contracted with pain. She stood looking anxiously through the room
until she saw her son leaning against the wall, with a young lady
standing in front of him holding a glass in her hand which she was
trying to induce him to take. One glance at the face of Ellis told
her too plainly his sad condition.

To go to him and endeavor to get him away Mrs. Whitford feared might
arouse his latent pride and make him stubborn to her wishes.

"You see that young man standing against the wall?" she said to one
of the waiters.

"Mr. Whitford do you mean?" asked the waiter.

"Yes," she replied. "Go to him quietly, and say that his mother is
going home and wants him. Speak low, if you please."

Mrs. Whitford stood with a throbbing heart as the waiter passed down
the room. The tempter was before her son offering the glass of wine,
which he yet refused. She saw him start and look disconcerted as the
waiter spoke to him, then wave the glass of wine aside. But he did
not stir from him place.

The waiter came back to Mrs. Whitford:

"He says don't wait for him, ma'am."

The poor mother felt an icy coldness run along her nerves. For some
moments she stood irresolute, and then went back to the parlor. She
remained there for a short time, masking her countenance as best she
could, and then returned to the dining-room, where noise and
merriment still prevailed. She did not at first see her son, though
her eyes went quickly from face to face and from form to form. She
was about retiring, under the impression that he was not there, when
the waiter to whom she had spoken before said to her:

"Are you looking for Mr. Whitford?"

There was something in his voice that made her heart stand still.

"Yes," she replied.

"You will find him at the lower end of the room, just in the
corner," said the man.

Mrs. Whitford made her way to the lower end of the room. Ellis was
sitting in a chair, stupid and maudlin, and two or three thoughtless
girls were around his chair laughing at his drunken efforts to be
witty. The shocked mother did not speak to him, but shrunk away and
went gliding from the room. At the door she said to the waiter who
had followed her out, drawn by a look she gave him:

"I will be ready to go in five minutes, and I want Mr. Whitford to
go with me. Get him down to the door as quietly as you can."

The waiter went back into the supper-room, and with a tact that came
from experience in cases similar to this managed to get the young
man away without arousing his opposition.

Five minutes afterward, as Mrs. Whitford sat in her carriage at the
door of Mr. Birtwell's palace home, her son was pushed in, half
resisting, by two waiters, so drunk that his wretched mother had to
support him with her arm all the way home. Is it any wonder that in
her aching heart the mother cried out, "Oh, that he had died a baby
on my breast!"






CHAPTER XI.





AMONG the guests at Mr. and Mrs. Birtwell's was an officer holding a
high rank in the army, named Abercrombie. He had married, many years
before, a lady of fine accomplishments and rare culture who was
connected with one of the oldest families in New York. Her
grandfather on her mother's side had distinguished himself as an
officer in the Revolutionary war; and on her father's side she could
count statesmen and lawyers whose names were prominent in the early
history of our country.

General Abercrombie while a young man had fallen into the vice of
the army, and had acquired the habit of drinking.

The effects of alcohol are various. On some they are seen in the
bloated flesh and reddened eyes. Others grow pale, and their skin
takes on a dead and ashen hue. With some the whole nervous system
becomes shattered; while with others organic derangements, gout,
rheumatism and kindred evils attend the assimilation of this poison.

Quite as varied are the moral and mental effects of alcoholic
disturbance. Some are mild and weak inebriates, growing passive or
stupid in their cups. Others become excited, talkative and
intrusive; others good-natured and merry; not a few coarse,
arbitrary, brutal and unfeeling; and some jealous, savage and
fiend-like.

Of the last-named class was General Abercrombie. When sober, a
kinder, gentler or more considerate man toward his wife could hardly
be found; but when intoxicated, he was half a fiend, and seemed to
take a devilish delight in tormenting her. It had been no uncommon
thing for him to point a loaded pistol at her heart, and threaten to
shoot her dead if she moved or cried out; to hold a razor at his own
throat, or place the keen edge, close to hers; to open a window at
midnight and threaten to fling himself to the ground, or to drag her
across the floor, swearing that they should take the leap together.

For years the wretched wife had borne all this, and worse if
possible, hiding her dreadful secret as best she could, and doing
all in her power to hold her husband, for whom she retained a strong
attachment, away from temptation. Friends who only half suspected
the truth wondered that Time was so aggressive, taking the flash and
merriment out of her beautiful eyes, the color and fullness from her
cheeks, the smiles from her lips and the glossy, blackness from her
hair.

"Mrs. Abercrombie is such a wreck," one would say on meeting her
after a few years. "I would hardly have known her; and she doesn't
look at all happy."

"I wonder if the general drinks as hard as ever?" would in all
probability be replied to this remark, followed by the response:

"I was not aware that he was a hard drinker. He doesn't look like
it."

"No, you would not suspect so much; but I am sorry to say that he
has very little control over his appetite."

At which a stronger surprise would be expressed.

General Abercrombie was fifty years old, a large, handsome and
agreeable man, and a favorite with his brother officers, who deeply
regretted his weakness. As an officer his drinking habits rarely
interfered with his duty. Somehow the discipline of the army had
gained such a power over him as to hold him repressed and
subordinate to its influence. It was only when official restraints
were off that the devil had power to enter in and fully possess him.

A year before the time of which we are writing General Abercrombie
had been ordered to duty in the north-eastern department. His
headquarters were in the city where the characters we have
introduced resided. Official standing gave him access to some of the
wealthiest and best circles in the city, and his accomplished wife
soon became a favorite with all who were fortunate enough to come
into close relations with her. Among these was Mrs. Birtwell, the
two ladies drawing toward each other with the magnetism of kindred
spirits.

A short time before coming to the city General Abercrombie, after
having in a fit of drunken insanity come near killing his wife,
wholly abandoned the use of intoxicants of every kind. He saw in
this his only hope. His efforts to drink guardedly and temperately
had been fruitless. The guard was off the moment a single glass of
liquor passed his lips, and, he came under the influence of an
aroused appetite against which resolution set itself feebly and in
vain.

Up to the evening of this party at Mr. Birtwell's General
Abercrombie had kept himself free from wine, and people who knew
nothing of his history wondered at his abstemiousness. When invited
to drink, he declined in a way that left no room for the invitation
to be repeated. He never went to private entertainments except in
company with his wife, and then he rarely took any other lady to the
supper-room.

The new hope born in the sad heart of Mrs. Abercrombie had grown
stronger as the weeks and months went by. Never for so long a time
had the general stood firm. It looked as, if he had indeed gained
the mastery over an appetite which at one time seemed wholly to have
enslaved him.

With a lighter heart than usual on such occasions, Mrs. Abercrombie
made ready for the grand entertainment, paying more than ordinary
attention to her toilette. Something of her old social and personal
pride came back into life, giving her face and bearing the dignity
and prestige worn in happier days. As she entered the drawing-room
at Mr. and Mrs. Birtwell's, leaning on her husband's arm, a ripple
of admiration was seen on many faces, and the question, "Who is
she?" was heard on many lips. Mrs. Abercrombie was a centre of
attraction that evening, and no husband could have been prouder of
such a distinction for his wife than was the general. He, too, found
himself an object of interest and attention. Mr. Birtwell was a man
who made the most of his guests, and being a genuine _parvenu_, did
not fail through any refinement of good breeding in advertising to
each other the merits or achievements of those he favored with
introductions. If he presented a man of letters to an eminent
banker, he informed each in a word or two of the other's
distinguished merits. An officer would be complimented on his rank
or public service, a scientist on his last book or essay, a leading
politician on his statesmanship. At Mr. Birtwell's you always found
yourself among men with more in them than you had suspected, and
felt half ashamed of your ignorance in regard to their great
achievements.

General Abercrombie, like many others that evening, felt unusually
well satisfied with himself. Mr. Birtwell complimented him whenever
they happened to meet, sometimes on his public services and
sometimes on the "sensation" that elegant woman Mrs. Abercrombie was
making. He grew in his own estimation under the flattering
attentions of his host, and felt a manlier pride swelling in his
heart than he had for some time known. His bearing became more
self-poised, his innate sense of strength more apparent. Here was a
man among men.

This was the general's state of mind when, after an hour, or two of
social intercourse, he entered the large supper-room, whither he
escorted a lady. He had not seen his wife for half an hour. If she
had been, as usual on such occasions, by his side, he would have
been on guard. But the lady who leaned on his arm was not his good
angel. She was a gay, fashionable woman, and as fond of good eating
and drinking as any male epicure there. The general was polite and
attentive, and as prompt as any younger gallant in the work of
supplying his fair companion with the good things she was so ready
to appropriate.

"Will you have a glass of champagne?"

Of course she would. Her eyebrows arched a little in surprise at the
question. The general filled a glass and placed it in her hand. Did
she raise it to her lips? No; she held it a little extended, looking
at him with an expression which said, "I will wait for you."

For an instant General Abercrombie felt as if he were sinking
through space. Darkness and fear were upon him. But there was no
time for indecision. The lady stood holding her glass and looking at
him fixedly. An instant and the struggle was over. He turned to the
table and filled another glass. A smile and a bow, and then, a
draught that sent the blood leaping along his veins with a hot and
startled impulse.

Mrs. Abercrombie, who had entered the room a little while before,
and was some distance from the place where her husband stood, felt
at the moment a sudden chill and weight fall upon her heart. A
gentleman who was talking to her saw her face grow pale and a look
that seemed like terror come into he eyes.

"Are you ill, Mrs. Abercrombie?" he asked, in some alarm.

"No," she replied. "Only a slight feeling of faintness. It is gone
now;" and she tried to recover herself.

"Shall I take you from the room?" asked the gentleman, seeing that
the color did not come back to her face.

"Oh no, thank you."

"Let me give you a glass of wine."

But she waved her hand with a quick motion, saying, "Not wine; but a
little ice water."

She drank, but the water did not take the whiteness from her lips
nor restore the color to her cheeks. The look of dread or fear kept
in her eyes, and her companion saw her glance up and down the room
in a furtive way as if in anxious search for some one.

In a few moments Mrs. Abercrombie was able to rise in some small
degree above the strange impression which had fallen upon her like
the shadow of some passing evil; but the rarely flavored dishes, the
choice fruits, confections and ices with which she was supplied
scarcely passed her lips. She only pretended to eat. Her ease of
manner and fine freedom of conversation were gone, and the gentleman
who had been fascinated by her wit, intelligence and frank womanly
bearing now felt an almost repellant coldness.

"You cannot feel well, Mrs. Abercrombie," he said. "The air is close
and hot. Let me take you back to the parlors."

She did not reply, nor indeed seem to hear him. Her eyes had become
suddenly arrested by some object a little way off, and were fixed
upon it in a frightened stare. The gentleman turned and saw only her
husband in lively conversation with a lady. He had a glass of wine
in his hand, and was just raising it to his lips.

"Jealous!" was the thought that flashed through his mind. The
position was embarrassing. What could he say? In the next moment
intervening forms hid those of General Abercrombie and his fair
companion. Still as a statue, with eyes that seemed staring into
vacancy, Mrs. Abercrombie remained for some moments, then she drew
her hand within the gentleman's arm and said in a low voice that was
little more than a hoarse whisper:

"Thank you; yes, I will go back to the parlors."

They retired from the room without attracting notice.

"Can I do anything for you?" asked the gentleman as he seated her on
a sofa in one of the bay-windows where she was partially concealed
from observation.

"No, thank you," she answered, with regaining self-control. She then
insisted on being left alone, and with a decision of manner that
gave her attendant no alternative but compliance.

The gentleman immediately returned to the supper-room. As he joined
the company there he met a friend to whom he said in a
half-confidential way: "Do you know anything about General
Abercrombie's relations with his wife?

"What do you mean?" inquired the friend, with evident surprise.

"I saw something just now that looks very suspicious."

"What?"

"I came here with Mrs. Abercrombie a little while ago, and was
engaged in helping her, when I saw her face grow deadly pale.
Following her eyes, I observed them fixed on the general, who was
chatting gayly and taking wine with a lady."

"What! taking wine did you say?"

The gentleman was almost as much surprised at the altered manner of
his friend as he had been with that of Mrs. Abercrombie:

"Yes; anything strange in that?"

"Less strange than sad," was replied. "I don't wonder you saw the
color go out of Mrs. Abercrombie's face."

"Why so? What does it mean?"

"It means sorrow and heartbreak."

"You surprise and pain me. I thought of the lady by his side, not of
the glass of wine in his hand."

The two men left the crowded supper-room in order to be more alone.

"You know something of the general's life and habits?"

"Yes."

"He has not been intemperate, I hope?"

"Yes."

"Oh, I am pained to hear you say so."

"Drink is his besetting sin, the vice that has more than once come
near leading to his dismissal from the army. He is one of the men
who cannot use wine or spirits in moderation. In consequence of some
diseased action of the nutritive organs brought on by drink, he has
lost the power of self-control when under the influence of alcoholic
stimulation. He is a dypso-maniac. A glass of wine or brandy to him
is like the match to a train of powder. I don't wonder, knowing what
I do about General Abercrombie, that his wife grew deadly pale
to-night when she saw him raise a glass to his lips."

"Has he been abstaining for any length of time?"

"Yes; for many months he has kept himself free. I am intimate with
an officer who told me all about him. When not under the influence
of drink, the general is one of the kindest-hearted men in the
world. To his wife he is tender and indulgent almost to a fault, if
that were possible. But liquor seems to put the devil into him.
Drink drowns his better nature and changes him into a half-insane
fiend. I am told that he came near killing his wife more than once
in a drunken phrensy."

"You pain me beyond measure. Poor lady! I don't wonder that the life
went out of her so suddenly, nor at the terror I saw in her face.
Can nothing be done? Has he no friends here who will draw him out of
the supper-room and get him away before he loses control of
himself?"

"It is too late. If he has begun to drink, it is all over. You might
as well try to draw off a wolf who has tasted blood."

"Does he become violent? Are we going to have a drunken scene?"

"Oh no; we need apprehend nothing of that kind. I never heard of his
committing any public folly. The devil that enters into him is not a
rioting, boisterous fiend, but quiet, malignant, suspicious and
cruel."

"Suspicious? Of what?"

"Of everybody and everything. His brother officers are in league
against him; his wife is regarded with jealousy; your frankest
speech covers in his view some hidden and sinister meaning. You must
be careful of your attentions to Mrs. Abercrombie to-night, for he
will construe them adversely, and pour out his wrath on her
defenceless head when they are alone."

"This is frightful," was answered. "I never heard of such a case."

"Never heard of a drunken man assaulting his wife when alone with
her, beating, maiming or murdering her?"

"Oh yes, among the lowest and vilest. But we are speaking now of
people in good society--people of culture and refinement."

"Culture and social refinements have no influence over a man when
the fever of intoxication is upon him. He is for the time an insane
man, and subject to the influx and control of malignant influences.
Hell rules him instead of heaven."

"It is awful to think of. It makes me shudder."

"We know little of what goes on at home after an entertainment like
this," said the other. "It all looks so glad and brilliant. Smiles,
laughter, gayety, enjoyment, meet you at every turn. Each one is at
his or her best. It is a festival of delight. But you cannot at this
day give wine and brandy without stint to one or two or three
hundred men and women of all ages, habits, temperaments and
hereditary moral and physical conditions without the production of
many evil consequences. It matters little what the social condition
may be; the hurt of drink is the same. The sphere of respectability
may and does guard many. Culture and pride of position hold others
free from undue sensual indulgence. But with the larger number the
enticements of appetite are as strong and enslaving in one grade of
society as in another, and the disturbance of normal conditions as
great. And so you see that the wife of an intoxicated army officer
or lawyer or banker may be in as much danger from his drunken and
insane fury, when alone with him and unprotected, as the wife of a
street-sweeper or hod-carrier."

"I have never thought of it in that way."

"No, perhaps not. Cases of wife-beating and personal injuries, of
savage and frightful assaults, of terrors and sufferings endured
among the refined and educated, rarely if ever come to public
notice. Family pride, personal delicacy and many other
considerations seal the lips in silence. But there are few social
circles in which it is not known that some of its members are sad
sufferers because of a husband's or a father's intemperance, and
there are many, many families, alas! which have always in their
homes the shadow of a sorrow that embitters everything. They hide it
as best they can, and few know or dream of what they endure."

Dr. Angier joined the two men at this moment, and heard the last
remark. The speaker added, addressing him:

"Your professional experience will corroborate this, Dr. Angier."

"Corroborate what?" he asked, with a slight appearance of evasion in
his manner.

"We were speaking of the effects of intemperance on the more
cultivated and refined classes, and I said that it mattered little
as to the social condition; the hurt of drink was the same and the
disturbance of normal conditions as great in one class of society as
in another, that a confirmed inebriate, when under the influence of
intoxicants, lost all idea of respectability or moral
responsibility, and would act out his insane passion, whether he
were a lawyer, an army officer or a hod-carrier. In other words,
that social position gave the wife of an inebriate no immunity from
personal violence when alone with her drunken husband."

Dr. Angier did not reply, but his face became thoughtful.

"Have you given much attention to the pathology of drunkenness?"
asked one of the gentlemen.

"Some; not a great deal. The subject is one of the most perplexing
and difficult we have to deal with."

"You class intemperance with diseases, do you not?"

"Yes; certain forms of it. It may be hereditary or acquired like any
other disease. One man may have a pulmonary, another a bilious and
another a dypso-maniac diathesis, and an exposure to exciting causes
in one case is as fatal to health as in the other. If there exist a
predisposition to consumption, the disease will be developed under
peculiar morbific influences which would have no deleterious effect
upon a subject not so predisposed. The same law operates as
unerringly in the inherited predisposition to intemperance. Let the
man with a dypso-maniac diathesis indulge in the use of intoxicating
liquors, and he will surely become a drunkard. There is no more
immunity for him than for the man who with tubercles in his lungs
exposes himself to cold, bad air and enervating bodily conditions."

"A more serious view of the case, doctor, than is usually taken."

"I know, but a moment's consideration--to say nothing of observed
facts--will satisfy any reasonable man of its truth."

"What do you mean by dypso-mania as a medical term?"

"The word," replied Dr. Angier, "means crazy for drink, and is used
in the profession to designate that condition of alcoholic disease
in which the subject when under its influence has no power of
self-control. It is characterized by an inordinate and irresistible
desire for alcoholic liquors, varying in intensity from a slight
departure from a normal appetite to the most depraved and entire
abandonment to its influence. When this disease becomes developed,
its action upon the brain is to deteriorate its quality and impair
its functions. All the faculties become more or less weakened.
Reason, judgment, perception, memory and understanding lose their
vigor and capacity. The will becomes powerless before the strong
propensity to drink. The moral sentiments and affections likewise
become involved in the general impairment. Conscience, the feeling
of accountability, the sense of right and wrong, all become
deadened, while the passions are aroused and excited."

"What an awful disease!" exclaimed one of the listeners.

"You may well call it an awful disease," returned the doctor, who,
under the influence of a few glasses of wine, was more inclined to
talk than usual. "It has been named the mother of diseases. Its
death-roll far outnumbers that of any other. When it has fairly
seized upon a man, no influence seems able to hold him back from the
indulgence of his passion for drink. To gratify this desire he will
disregard every consideration affecting his standing in society, his
pecuniary interests and his domestic relations, while the most
frightful instances of the results of drinking have no power to
restrain him. A hundred deaths from this cause, occurring under the
most painful and revolting circumstances, fail to impress him with a
sense of his own danger. His understanding will be clear as to the
cases before him, and he will even condemn the self-destructive acts
which he sees in others, but will pass, as it were, over the very
bodies of these victims, without a thought of warning or a sense of
fear, in order to gratify his own ungovernable propensity. Such is
the power of this terrible malady."

"Has the profession found a remedy?"

"No; the profession is almost wholly at fault in its treatment.
There are specialists connected with insane and reformatory
institutions who have given much attention to the subject, but as
yet we have no recorded line of treatment that guarantees a cure."

"Except," said one of his listeners, "the remedy of entire
abstinence from drinks in which alcohol is present."

The doctor gave a shrug:

"You do not cure a thirsty man by withholding water."

His mind was a little clouded by the wine he had taken.

"The thirsty man's desire for water is healthy; and if you withhold
it, you create a disease that will destroy him," was answered. "Not
so the craving for alcohol. With every new supply the craving is
increased, and the man becomes more and more helpless in the folds
of an enslaving appetite. Is it not true, doctor, that with few
exceptions all who have engaged in treating inebriates agree that
only in entire abstinence is cure possible?"

"Well, yes; you are probably right there," Dr. Angler returned, with
some professional reserve. "In the most cases isolation and
abstinence are no doubt the only remedies, or, to speak more
correctly, the only palliatives. As for cure, I am one of the
skeptics. If you have the diathesis, you have the danger of exposure
always, as in consumption."

"An occasion like this," remarked the other, "is to one with a
dypso-maniac diathesis like a draft of cold, damp air on the exposed
chest of a delicate girl who has the seeds of consumption in her
lungs. Is it not so, doctor?"

"Yes, yes."

"There are over three hundred persons here to-night."

"Not less."

"In so large a company, taking society as we have it to-day, is it
likely that we have none here with a hereditary or acquired love of
drink?"

"Scarcely possible," replied Dr. Angier.

"How large do you think the percentage?"

"I have no means of knowing; but if we are to judge by the large
army of drunkards in the land, it must be fearfully great."

"Then we cannot invite to our houses fifty or a hundred guests, and
give them as much wine and spirits as they care to drink, without
seriously hurting some of them. I say nothing of the effect upon
unvitiated tastes; I refer only to those with diseased appetites who
made happen to be present."

"It will be bad for them, certainly. Such people should stay at
home."

And saying this, Dr. Angier turned from the two gentlemen to speak
with a professional friend who came toward him at the moment.






CHAPTER XII.





"THE doctor likes his glass of wine," remarked one of the gentlemen
as Dr. Angier left them.

"Is that so?"

"Didn't you observe his heightened color and the gleam in his eyes?"

"I noticed something unusual in his manner, but did not think it the
effect of wine."

"He is a reticent man, with considerable of what may be called
professional dignity, and doesn't often let himself down to laymen
as he did just now."

"There wasn't much letting down, that I could see."

"Perhaps not; but professional pride is reserved and sensitive in
some persons. It hasn't much respect for the opinions of
non-experts, and is chary of discussion with laymen. Dr. Angier is
weak, or peculiar if you please, in this direction. I saw that he
was annoyed at your reply to his remark that you do not cure a
thirsty man by withholding water. It was a little thing, but it
showed his animus. The argument was against him, and it hurt his
pride. As I said, he likes his glass of wine, and if he does not
take care will come to like it too well. A doctor has no more
immunity from dypso-mania than his patient. The former may inherit
or acquire the disease as well as the latter."

"How does the doctor know that he has not from some ancestor this
fatal diathesis? Children rarely if ever betray to their children a
knowledge of the vices or crimes of their parents. The death by
consumption, cancer or fever is a part of oral family history, but
not so the death from intemperance. Over that is drawn a veil of
silence and secresy, and the children and grandchildren rarely if
ever know anything about it. There may be in their blood the taint
of a disease far more terrible than cancer or consumption, and none
to give them warning of the conditions under which its development
is certain."

"Is it not strange," was replied, "that, knowing as Dr. Angier
certainly does, from what he said just now, that in all classes of
society there is a large number who have in their physical
constitutions the seeds of this dreadful disease--that, as I have
said, knowing this, he should so frequently prescribe wine and
whisky to his patients?"

"It is a little surprising. I have noticed, now that you speak of
it, his habit in this respect."

"He might as well, on his own theory, prescribe thin clothing and
damp air to one whose father or mother had died of consumption as
alcoholic stimulants to one, who has the taint of dypso-mania in his
blood. In one case as in the other the disease will almost surely be
developed. This is common sense, and something that can be
understood by all men."

"And yet, strange to say, the very men who have in charge the public
health, the very men whose business it is to study the relations
between cause and effect in diseases, are the men who in far too
many instances are making the worst possible prescriptions for
patients in whom even the slightest tendency to inebriety may exist
hereditarily. We have, to speak plainly, too many whisky doctors,
and the harm they are doing is beyond calculation. A physician takes
upon himself a great responsibility when, without any knowledge of
the antecedents of a patient or the stock from which he may have
come, he prescribes whisky or wine or brandy as a stimulant. I
believe thousands of drunkards have been made by these unwise
prescriptions, against which I am glad to know some of the most
eminent men in the profession, both in this country and Europe, have
entered a solemn protest."

"There is one thing in connection with the disease of intemperance,"
replied the other, "that is very remarkable. It is the only one from
which society does not protect itself by quarantine and sanitary
restrictions. In cholera, yellow fever and small-pox every effort is
made to guard healthy districts from their invasion, and the man who
for gain or any other consideration should be detected in the work
of introducing infecting agents would be execrated and punished. But
society has another way of dealing with the men who are engaged in
spreading the disease of intemperance among the people. It enacts
laws for their protection, and gives them the largest liberty to get
gain in their work of disseminating disease and death, and, what is
still more remarkable, actually sells for money the right to do
this."

"You put the case sharply."

"Too sharply?"

"Perhaps not. No good ever comes of calling evil things by dainty
names or veiling hard truth under mild and conservative phrases. In
granting men a license to dispense alcohol in every variety of
enticing forms and in a community where a large percentage of the
people have a predisposition to intemperance, consequent as well on
hereditary taint as unhealthy social conditions, society commits
itself to a disastrous error the fruit of which is bitterer to the
taste than the ashen core of Dead Sea apples."

"What about Dead Sea apples?" asked Mr. Elliott, who came up at the
moment and heard the last remark. The two gentlemen were pew-holders
in his church. Mr. Elliott's countenance was radiant. All his fine
social feelings were active, and he was enjoying a "flow of soul,"
if not "a feast of reason." Wine was making glad his heart--not
excess of wine, in the ordinary sense, for Mr. Elliott had no morbid
desire for stimulants. He was of the number who could take a social
glass and not feel a craving for more. He believed in wine as a good
thing, only condemning its abuse.

"What were you saying about Dead Sea apples?" Mr. Elliott repeated
his question.

"We were speaking of intemperance," replied one of the gentlemen.

"O--h!" in a prolonged and slightly indifferent tone. Mr. Elliott's
countenance lost some of its radiance. "And what were you saying
about it?"

Common politeness required as much as this, even though the subject
was felt to be out of place.

"We were talking with Dr. Angier just now about hereditary
drunkenness, or rather the inherited predisposition to that
vice--disease, as the doctor calls it. This predisposition he says
exists in a large number of persons, and is as well defined
pathologically, and as certain to become active, under favoring
causes, as any other disease. Alcoholic stimulants are its exciting
causes. Let, said the doctor, a man so predisposed indulge in the
use of intoxicating liquors, and he will surely become a drunkard.
There is no more immunity for him, he added, than for the man who
with tubercles in his lungs exposes himself to cold, bad air and
enervating bodily conditions. Now, is not this a very serious view
to take of the matter?"

"Certainly it is," replied Mr. Elliott. "Intemperance is a sad
thing, and a most fearful curse."

He did not look comfortable. It was to him an untimely intrusion of
an unpleasant theme. "But what in the world set the doctor off on
this subject?" he asked, trying to make a diversion.

"Occasions are apt to suggest subjects for conversation," answered
the gentleman. "One cannot be present at a large social
entertainment like this without seeing some things that awaken
doubts and questionings. If it be true, as Dr. Angier says, that the
disease of intemperance is as surely transmitted, potentially, as
the disease of consumption, and will become active under favoring
circumstances, then a drinking festival cannot be given without
fearful risk to some of the invited guests."

"There is always danger of exciting disease where a predisposition
exists," replied Mr. Elliott. "A man can hardly be expected to make
himself acquainted with the pathology of his guests before inviting
them to a feast. If that is to be the rule, the delicate young lady
with the seeds of consumption in her system must be left at home for
fear she may come with bare arms and a low-necked dress, and expose
herself after being heated with dancing to the draught of an open
window. The bilious and dyspeptic must be omitted also, lest by
imprudent eating and drinking they make themselves sick. We cannot
regulate these things. The best we can do is to warn and admonish.
Every individual is responsible for his own moral character, habits
and life. Because some may become the slaves of appetite, shall
restraint and limitation be placed on those who make no abuse of
liberty? We must teach men self-control and self-mastery, if we
would truly help and save them. There is some exaggeration, in my
opinion, about this disease-theory of intemperance. The deductions
of one-idea men are not always to be trusted. They are apt to draw
large conclusions from small facts. Man is born a free agent, and
all men have power, if they will, to hold their appetites in check.
This truth should be strongly impressed upon every one. Your
disease-theory takes away moral responsibility. It assumes that a
man is no more accountable for getting drunk than for getting the
consumption. His diathesis excuses him as much in one case as in the
other. Now, I don't believe a word of this. I do not class
appetites, however inordinate, with physical diseases over which the
will has no control. A man must control his appetite. Reason and
conscience require this, and God gives to every one the mastery of
himself if he will but use his high prerogative."

Mr. Elliott spoke a little loftily, and in a voice that expressed a
settlement of the argument. But one at least of his listeners was
feeling too strongly on the subject to let the argument close.

"What," he asked, "if a young man who did not, because he could not,
know that he had dypso-mania in his blood were enticed to drink
often at parties where wine is freely dispensed? Would he not be
taken, so to speak, unawares? Would he be any more responsible for
acts that quickened into life an over-mastering appetite than the
young girl who, not knowing that she had in her lungs the seeds of a
fatal disease, should expose herself to atmospheric changes that
were regarded by her companions as harmless, but which, to her were
fraught with peril?"

"In both cases," replied Mr. Elliott, "the responsibility to care
for the health would come the moment it was found to be in danger."

"The discovery of danger may come, alas! too late for responsible
action. We know that it does in most cases with the consumptive, and
quite as often, I fear, with the dypso-maniac."

As the gentleman was closing the last sentence he observed a change
pass over the face of Mr. Elliott, who was looking across the room.
Following the direction of his eyes, he saw General Abercrombie in
the act of offering his arm to Mrs. Abercrombie. It was evident,
from the expression of his countenance and that of the countenances
of all who were near him that something had gone wrong. The
general's face was angry and excited. His eyes had a fierce
restlessness in them, and glanced from his wife to a gentleman who
stood confronting him and then back to her in a strange and menacing
way.

Mrs. Abercrombie's face was deadly pale. She said a few words
hurriedly to her husband, and then drew him from the parlor.

"What's the matter?" asked Mr. Elliott, crossing over and speaking
to the gentleman against whom the anger of General Abercrombie had
seemed to be directed.

"Heaven knows," was answered, "unless he's jealous of his wife."

"Very strange conduct," said one.

"Been drinking too much," remarked another.

"What did he do?" inquired a third.

"Didn't you see it? Mr. Ertsen was promenading with Mrs.
Abercrombie, when the general swept down upon them as fierce as a
lion and took the lady from his arm."

This was exaggeration. The thing was done more quietly, but still
with enough of anger and menace to create something more than a
ripple on the surface.

A little while afterward the general and Mrs. Abercrombie were seen
coming down stairs and going along the hall. His face was rigid and
stern. He looked neither to the right nor the left, but with eyes
set forward made his way toward the street door. Those who got a
glimpse of Mrs. Abercrombie as she glided past saw a face that
haunted them a long time afterward.






CHAPTER XIII.





AS General and Mrs. Abercrombie reached the vestibule, and the door
shut behind them, the latter, seeing, that her husband was going out
into the storm, which was now at its height, drew back, asking at
the same time if their carriage had been called.

The only answer made by General Abercrombie was a fiercely-uttered
imprecation. Seizing at the same time the arm she had dropped from
his, he drew her out of the vestibule and down the snow-covered step
with a sudden violence that threw her to the ground. As he dragged
her up he cursed her again in a cruel undertone, and then, grasping
her arm, moved off in the very teeth of the blinding tempest, going
so swiftly that she could not keep pace with him. Before they had
gone a dozen steps she fell again.

Struggling to her feet, helped up by the strong grasp of the madman
whose hand was upon her arm, Mrs. Abercrombie tried to rally her
bewildered thoughts. She knew that her life was in danger, but she
knew also that much, if not everything, depended on her own conduct.
The very extremity of her peril calmed her thoughts and gave them
clearness and decision. Plunging forward as soon as his wife could
recover herself again, General Abercrombie strode away with a speed
that made it almost impossible for her to move on without falling,
especially as the snow was lying deep and unbroken on the pavement,
and her long dress, which she had not taken time to loop up before
starting, dragged about her feet and impeded her steps. They had not
gone half a block before she fell again. A wild beast could hardly
have growled more savagely than did this insane man as he caught her
up from the bed of snow into which she had fallen and shook her with
fierce passion. A large, strong man, with an influx of demoniac,
strength in every muscle, his wife was little more than a child in
his hands. He could have crushed the life out of her at a single
grip.

Not a word or sound came from Mrs. Abercrombie. The snow that
covered the earth was scarcely whiter than her rigid face. Her eyes,
as the light of a flickering gas-lamp shone into them, hardly
reflected back its gleam, so leaden was their despair.

He shook her fiercely, the tightening grasp on her arms bruising the
tender flesh, cursed her, and then, in a blind fury, cast her from
him almost into the middle of the street, where she lay motionless,
half buried in the snow. For some moments he stood looking at the
prostrate form of his wife, on which the snow sifted rapidly down,
making the dark garments white in so short a space of time that she
seemed to fade from his view. It was this, perhaps, that wrought a
sudden change in his feelings, for he sprang toward her, and taking
her up in his arms, called her name anxiously. She did not reply by
word or sign, He carried her back to the pavement and turned her
face to the lamp; it was white and still, the eyes closed, the mouth
shut rigidly.

But Mrs. Abercrombie was not unconscious. Every sense was awake.

"Edith! Edith!" her husband cried. His tones, anxious at first, now
betrayed alarm. A carriage went by at the moment. He called to the
driver, but was unheard or unheeded. Up and down the street, the air
of which was so filled with snow that he could see only a short
distance, he looked in vain for the form of a policeman or citizen.
He was alone in the street at midnight, blocks away from his
residence, a fierce storm raging in the air, the cold intense, and
his wife apparently insensible in his arms. If anything could free
his brain from its illusions, cause enough was here. He shouted
aloud for help, but there came no answer on the wild careering
winds. Another carriage went by, moving in ghostly silence, but his
call to the driver was unheeded, as before.

Feeling the chill of the intensely cold air going deeper and deeper,
and conscious of the helplessness of their situation unless she used
the strength that yet remained, Mrs. Abercrombie showed symptoms of
returning life and power of action. Perceiving this, the general
drew an arm around her for support and made a motion to go on again,
to which she responded by moving forward, but with slow and not very
steady steps. Soon, however, she walked more firmly, and began
pressing on with a haste that ill accorded with the apparent
condition out of which she had come only a few moments before.

The insane are often singularly quick in perception, and General
Abercrombie was for the time being as much insane as any patient of
an asylum. It flashed into his mind that his wife had been deceiving
him, had been pretending a faint, when she was as strong of limb and
clear of intellect as when they left Mr. Birtwell's. At this thought
the half-expelled devil that had been controlling him leaped back
into his heart, filling it again with evil passions. But the wind
was driving the fine, sand-like, sharp-cutting snow into his face
with such force and volume as to half suffocate and bewilder him.
Turning at this moment a corner of the street that brought him into
the clear sweep of the storm, the wind struck him with a force that
seemed given by a human hand, and threw

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