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