r Hillhouse. "Tempted by its sparkle and
flavor, Archie Voss, as pure and promising a young man as you will find
in the city, was lured on until he had taken more than his brain would
bear. In this state he went out at midnight alone in a blinding storm
and lost his way--how or where is not yet known. He may have been set
upon and robbed and murdered in his helpless condition, or he may have
fallen into a pit where he lies buried beneath the snow, or he may have
wandered in his blind bewilderment to the river and gone down under its
chilling waters.

"Mr. Ridley, with his old appetite not dead, but only half asleep and
lying in wait for an opportunity, goes also to Mr. Birtwell's, and the
sparkle and flavor of wine and the invitations that are pressed upon
him from all sides prove too much for his good resolutions. He tastes
and falls. He goes in his right mind, and comes away so much
intoxicated that he cannot find his way home. How he reached there at
last I do not know--he must have been in some station-house until
daylight; but when I saw him, his pitiable suffering and alarmed face
made my heart ache. He had killed his wife! He, or the wine he found at
Mr. Birtwell's? Which?"

Doctor Hillhouse was nervous and excited, using stronger language than
was his wont.

"And I," he added, before Doctor Kline could respond--"I went to the
party also, and the sparkle and flavor of wine and spirit of
conviviality that pervaded the company lured me also--not weak like
Archie, nor with a shattered self-control like Mr. Ridley--to drink far
beyond the bounds of prudence, as my nervous condition to-day too
surely indicates. A kind of fatality seems to have attended this party."

The doctor gave a little shiver, which was observed by Doctor Kline.

"Not a nervous chill?" said the latter, manifesting concern.

"No; a moral chill, if I may use such a term," replied Doctor
Hillhouse--"a shudder at the thought of what might have been as one of
the consequences of Mr. Birtwell's liberal dispensation of wine."

"The strain of the morning's work has been too much for you, doctor,
and given your mind an unhealthy activity," said his companion. "You
want rest and time for recuperation."

"It would have been nothing except for the baleful effects of that
party," answered the doctor, whose thought could not dissever itself
from the unhappy consequences which had followed the carousal (is the
word too strong?) at Mr. Birtwell's. "If I