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 had not been betrayed into drinking wine enough to disturb seriously my nervous system and leave it weak and uncertain to-day, if Mr.Ridley had not been tempted to his fall, if poor Archie Voss had been at home last night instead of in the private drinking-saloon of one of our most respected citizens, do you think that hand," holding up his right hand as he spoke, "would have lost for a moment its cunning to-day and put in jeopardy a precious life ?" The doctor rose from his chair in much excitement and walked nervously about the room.
"It did not lose its cunning," said Doctor Kline, in a calm but emphatic voice.