were of so wild and strange a character that slumber was brief and
unrefreshing.

The light came dimly in through half-drawn curtains on the next
morning when a servant knocked at my door.

"What is wanted?" I asked.

"Did Mr. Albert Martindale sleep here last night?"

I sprang from my bed, strangely agitated, and partly opening the
chamber door, said, in a voice whose unsteadiness I could not
control, "Why do you ask, Katy? Who wants to know?"

"Mrs. Martindale has sent to inquire. The girl says he didn't come
home last night."

"Tell her that he left our house about two o'clock," I replied; and
shutting the chamber door, staggered back to the bed and fell across
it, all my strength gone for the moment.

"Send her word to inquire at one of the police stations," said my
husband, bitterly.

I did not answer, but lay in a half stupor, under the influence of
benumbing mental pain. After a while I arose, and, looking out, saw
everything clothed in a white mantle, and the snow falling in large
flakes, heavily but silently, through the still air. How the sight
chilled me. That the air was piercing cold, I knew by the delicate
frost-pencilings all over the window panes.