TONGUES WAGGING OVER STATE OF CLINTON MARRIAGE.

Byline: Frank Bruni The New York Times

In a court of law, the evidence would have been considered laughably circumstantial. But in a city primed for scandal and hooked on scuttlebutt, it inevitably took on the cast of something significant, or at least something worth chattering about.

Exhibit A: The Utah ski vacation two weeks ago. Bill and Hillary Clinton ended it a day ahead of schedule, heading back to the White House with such haste that the reporters who travel with the president were left, atypically, in the lurch.

Exhibit B: The trip to Central America this week. He went and she didn't, although she was supposed to. The first lady's spokeswoman, Marsha Berry, said Hillary Clinton was nursing a back injury that she had aggravated on the slopes. But the ailment had not kept her from a hectic schedule of appearances in New York just three days after her return from the snowy West.

Exhibit C: The dedication of a shrine to Clinton on Friday in his hometown, Hope, Ark. It was a big occasion for the big guy, but she wasn't there. Scheduling conflicts, Berry said, and anyway the back was ``still tender.''

Indeed, a strained muscle and a crammed dance card might well have been the humdrum sum and summary of the situation. But it was a measure of this moment in the Clintons' marriage, and in Hillary Clinton's flirtations with a future beyond the White House, that questions about the state of their union wafted from dinner tables inside the Beltway and set Berry's phone to jangling.

In the suspicion-rich aftermath of Paula Jones, Monica Lewinsky, impeachment and the rest of it, a strange and ghoulish vigil has undeniably taken hold here. It's a marital death watch, perhaps arising less from any smoke signals that the Clintons are sending out than from Washington insiders' presumptions about what they would do if they were in the first lady's pumps.

And it demonstrates the way the tornado of attention surrounding Hillary Clinton's possible political ambitions is sweeping all aspects of her life into its funnel cloud.

Overblown hooey 

Some of the first lady's advisers and friends dismissed this week's speculation about new troubles in the Clintons' relationship as so much overblown hooey.

``If not for this unfortunate mishap on the ski slope in Utah, Mrs. Clinton would be - we would all be - in Central America with the president,'' Berry said toward the end of the week, the good cheer in her voice intact.

As for a few news reports of heightened discord between the couple, Berry said, ``I don't know what it's based on.''

Actually, a convergence of circumstances has intensified scrutiny of the Clintons' marriage. Beyond the scheduling oddities, there are the books being peddled simultaneously, and with enormous fanfare, as privileged peeks into the couple's private hearts.

Playful affection

In ``All Too Human,'' former White House aide George Stephanopoulos recalls scenes of playful affection, like Hillary Clinton hand-feeding her husband lemon wedges dipped in honey.

In ``Monica's Story,'' writer Andrew Morton, weaving threads of information, opinion, fantasy and pure vitriol from Lewinsky, posits a coldness and distance between the Clintons that forces the president to look elsewhere for emotional and sexual comfort and leads him to talk about the possibility of bachelorhood down the road.

Then there is Hillary Clinton's professed contemplation of a Senate candidacy in New York. Entering the race would mean more time away from the White House, and the establishment of a beachhead in New York before the president's lease at Pennsylvania Avenue is up.

Is that an omen of a more lasting separation to come?

``Oh, please,'' said Mandy Grunwald, a media strategist who knows the Clintons well.

Harold Ickes, one of the first lady's current political advisers, similarly scoffed at the various notions floating around this week, including a tidbit that the Clintons had essentially separated while remaining under one capacious roof.

``As far as I'm concerned, it is totally goofy,'' Ickes said.

Murdoch conspiracy?

Perhaps best capturing the quasi-absurd flavor of this latest inning in the guessing game, another adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, attributed the conjecture to nothing less than a conspiracy of innuendo orchestrated by Rupert Murdoch's media empire.

The adviser noted that the three news outlets that first ran accounts about the Clinton marriage this week were tied to Murdoch. Those outlets were Fox News and the New York Post, both owned by him, and The Drudge Report, an online newsletter whose publisher, Matt Drudge, appears regularly on Fox.

Howard Rubenstein, a spokesman for Murdoch, chuckled at the accusation of conspiracy and said he did not think that Murdoch would have any interest in responding to it.

Of course, swells of anger have often roiled the Clintons' marriage, and they have frequently gone their separate ways, a modern couple with dual and sometimes dueling schedules.

``They have always been like two ships passing in the night,'' said someone familiar with the Clintons' daily routines inside the White House.

``She likes to go to bed early,'' this person said. ``He stays up late, making phone calls.''

Berry said the president would go stag to the Gridiron dinner in a week, with the first lady and the couple's daughter, Chelsea, taking advantage of Chelsea's spring break from Stanford University to tour northern Africa.

But Hillary Clinton is expected to be back for the White House radio and television correspondents' dinner. What's more, just before she leaves for Africa, she and the president will host a St. Patrick's Day party at the White House, Berry said.

Several friends said late this week that to their eyes, the marriage had not taken any noticeable turns in the past month. But no one claimed to know definitively what was going on, as no one but the Clintons really could.

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PHOTO Recent news reports have fueled speculation that the marriage of President and Hillary Clinton, seen here in November, is shaky.

Stephen Crowley/The New York Times