Then it was that she had donned her most charming toilette--a dress of heavy white satin simple yet queenly--and had gone to one of those balls of the early times of the Confederacy, where the cavaliers were many and gay; she was all smiles and bright eyes, though these were the only jewels she wore, for had she not discovered at the moment of opening the case that her diamonds--Rufus Gwynn's own bridal gift to her--were missing!--sold, pawned, given away, it was never known. Thus seeking her duty in these devious ways and to do his choice credit, as a wife should, her charm held a court about her,--even Mildred Fisher, who loved splendor, ablaze with the collection of precious stones at her disposal, her mother's, her grandmother's, and her aunt's, was eclipsed. The glittering officers followed the beautiful young wife in the promenade, and stood about and awaited the cessation of the whirl as she waltzed with one of the number, and devoutly held her bouquet while in the banqueting room, and drank her health and toasted her happiness, and broke her fan, soliciting a breeze for her comfort. The result?--When in the carriage homeward bound, she was fit to throw herself out of the window and under the wheels in sheer terror of the demon of jealousy she had aroused. Her husband loaded her with curses, he foamed at the mouth as he threatened the men with whom she had danced, more than one of whom he had himself introduced for the purpose. He protested he would shoot Julius Roscoe because he had _not_ asked her to dance, but had turned pale when he saw her, and had stood in the shadows of the columns at the upper end of the ball room and with melancholy, love-lorn eyes watched her in the waltz. When she declared she had not seen Julius, she had not spoken to him--"You dare not!" he cried. And but that she clutched his arm, he would have sprung from the vehicle in motion to hide in the shrubbery--the pine hedge--as they passed Judge Roscoe's gate, to shoot Julius in the back as he went home from the ball,--in the back, in the darkness, from ambush, that none might know! Then as her husband could not force himself from her grasp, he turned and struck her across the face twice, heavily.