xtended, 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 t