How little noise people make when they are suddenly stricken with great mental anguish.

They say that after a storm there comes a calm, and a very true saying it is. After the storm of orange blossoms that raged around Ye Dene on that July day, there came a calm which was broken only by the excitement of watching for the postman. The most valuable of the wedding presents were safely packed up on the evening of the wedding day and consigned to Alfred Whittaker’s private safe. The others were left in the girls’ sitting-room, carefully covered up, in preparation for the long trip in which the bride and bridegroom were indulging themselves, prior to regular housekeeping.

For years the Whittakers had made a point of seeking a fresh holiday resort with each summer, and this year, by a kind of instinct, they decided not to go to an English watering-place. Perhaps the feeling that the bride and groom were enjoying themselves in the Bernese Oberland, and meant to cover a good deal of ground before they turned their footsteps homewards, made them feel that the contrast of an English watering-place would be too much. They therefore decided that Dieppe would be a bright and convenient change for them; but they were not due to leave home until some ten days after the wedding.

Now, it happened that Regina, instead of following the usual course of mothers, and making the little absent bride into a sort of deity, was possessed of a feeling that she would like in some way to reward her younger girl for her helpfulness at the time of the wedding, and the unselfish manner in which she had deferred in every possible way to her sister’s wishes. She therefore determined that she would give Julia a little surprise present. No, it was not a birthday, it was not any kind of commemoration, but she felt that this was an occasion on which she could appropriately spend a little money. Now Regina was amply blessed with this world’s goods—I mean in her own right. Alfred Whittaker had done extremely well in the world, and whereas Regina had once loomed in his horizon as an heiress in a modest way, she was now the wife of an exceedingly warm man, and happy in the possession of a tidy little income of her own. She breathed not a word of her purpose to a soul. She did not intend her little gift to take the form of raiment. Julia’s father gave her an ample dress allowance, and Regina was in the habit of adding to it with special offerings at such times as birthdays and the season of Christmas. It was not difficult for her to carry out her purpose, for she had but seldom gone to town in company with her girls. She was so busy a woman, she had so many excuses, so many appointments and engagements of a semi-business kind, that her comings and goings were not often questioned.

“What are you doing to-day, Julia?” she asked, one morning at breakfast, about a week after the wedding.

“To-day, mother dear? Well, I have to go out with Emmeline Marksby this morning, and unless you want me I am going to lunch there. And then I am going to get my new white frock fitted on, and I am going to tea at the Dravens.”

“So you will be occupied all day?”

“Why, do you want me?”

“Not at all, dear child, only I feel that you must be lonely now that Maudie has gone, and I have at least a dozen things to occupy me.”

“Oh, don’t worry yourself about me; I shall be busy right up to dinner time.”

So they went their separate ways, and two hours later Mrs. Whittaker might have been seen deliberately pacing up the arcade in which was situated the shop at which Maudie’s earrings had been bought. A smooth-spoken young gentleman came forward to receive her. Regina explained her pleasure; she wanted earrings. No, not for the bride; for the young lady who was with her when she bought the bride’s earrings. Solitaire earrings? Yes. Turquoise were very nice, but she fancied that Miss Whittaker did not care much about turquoise. Did she fancy pink coral? Yes, that was a happy idea, so suitable for a young lady. So Regina was shown various solitaire earrings in that most delicate and girlish substance. But even then she was not satisfied, and the pink coral earrings were set in diamonds. No, it was not the expense; that was not the question, but Mrs. Whittaker thought that not even tiny diamonds should find a place in the jewel-box of a very young girl.

“Pink coral without—?”

“Just a few sparks, madam,” said the gentleman on the other side of the counter, “they will be a little—well, a little insignificant—as earrings.”

“Perhaps,” Mrs. Whittaker admitted, “you might let me see the turquoise, I could have those without diamonds.”

“Yes, or pearls. Solitaire pearls are quite young ladies’ jewelry.”

“And are they very expensive?” asked Regina.

“Oh no, madam. Let me show you the pearls.”

So another tray was handed out, and yet another tray; one containing all manner of turquoise studs for the ears, and the other showing an assortment of pearl earrings, from modest ones at five guineas a pair to some which were far beyond Regina’s means or Julia’s necessities. Eventually a pair of pearl solitaires were chosen and paid for.

“Yes, I shall take them with me,” said Regina, opening her smart black and gold wrist bag in order that the little jewel-case might be comfortably nested in company with her small purse and her pocket-handkerchief.

“I hope, madam,” said the shopman, “that you liked Mr. Whittaker’s last present to you.”

“I like it very much,” said Regina, smoothing the back of her hand, and gazing admiringly at the big turquoise ring that adorned it, “I think it is a very handsome ring.” Then she looked straight into the young man’s eyes, “You were not speaking of this?” she said, with a gesture of her hand to show that she was speaking of the ring.

“No, madam,” he stammered, “I remember Mr. Whittaker buying the ring and the bangle for the young lady—I—I was thinking of quite another customer.”

At that moment another figure came from the office behind the shop. It was, indeed, the assistant who had actually attended to their wants on the occasion of her previous visit.

“I hope,” said he, “that the bracelet that Mr. Whittaker bought the other day met with your approval, madam.”

For a moment Regina felt as if the earth were opening under her feet; a wild impulse seized her to catch violently hold of something, and scream in a series of sharp intermittent yelps as a locomotive does when something has gone wrong, and a wild instinct to catch the two smooth-faced young men on the other side of the counter by the ears and bang their heads together—a feeling as if heaven and earth were slipping away from her. But Regina was a remarkable woman! She had her vanities and her weaknesses, but in all the emergencies of life Regina might be counted upon for not losing her head. In spite of the sea of tempestuous emotions which surged within her at that moment, she maintained her dignity and her common-sense.

“No,” said she, “I have not yet seen it. I am afraid that you have given my husband away; as a matter of fact I have a birthday next week.”

It was the first plump and deliberate lie that Regina had ever told in her life. She did not hurry out of the shop—she even went so far as to choose a little present for her lord, going back with a curious persistence to the idea of pink coral, and bought for him what Julia would have described as a perfectly sweet tie pin, consisting of a bit of pink coral set between two small but fiery diamonds.

“Mr. Johnson,” said the younger of the two assistants, as the door closed behind Regina, “you have put your foot in it this time.”

“Why—how—what d’you mean?”

“Simply this, that Mr. Alfred Whittaker, of Ye Dene, Northampton Park, won’t thank you for letting on to that good lady that he was here last week buying a bracelet that she don’t know anything about.”

“Oh Lord! I never thought of it. She said she had a birthday next week.”

“She said, yes, she said, but that ain’t any proof to me; I never saw an old girl pull herself together in a neater manner; she even went so far as to buy a tie pin on the strength of it. But, mark my words, Mr. Alfred Whittaker won’t thank you for letting on to that lady that he was here last week buying that bracelet.”

“If I thought that,” said Mr. Johnson, “I’d put my head straight in a bag.”

“If it had been me,” said the other, “being a youngster I might have been excused, but an old hand like you—tittle-tattling about other customers’ purchases—you ought to know better.”

“You are quite right; I deserve anything that may come of it; I don’t think that I have ever done such an idiotic thing in my life. What can I do to make up for it?”

“Nothing,” said the other. “If anything is said, swear that Mr. Whittaker told you that the present was for his wife.”

“I think he did.”

“That’s as may be. Anyway, stick to it through thick and thin that he mentioned that it actually was for his wife.”

“Well, don’t tell any of the others, Dick.”

“I shouldn’t dream of doing that, it isn’t likely. I might make a slip myself one day, so I am not going to point out the slips of other people.” Which, considering the very near shave the young gentleman had had of making the very same slip not ten minutes before, might be considered a very feeling remark.

Meantime Regina had gone blindly along the arcade. She was dressed in summer garments, and not a few very curious glances were cast at her. Twice she stopped to look in shop windows with eyes that saw nothing. The first was a gunsmith’s, and the second was a man’s window of a distinguished bootmaker’s. Regina never knew the exact objects at which she had gazed during that painful peregrination. When she got to the end of the arcade she turned and walked back again, and all the time there beat to and fro in her brain an idea which said that Alfred, her noble Alfred, had gone after other gods—after other gods! Well, in the worst trials of life, in the griefs and shocks and sorrows of the newest and most unaccustomed kind, a woman cannot walk up and down a fashionable arcade forever. When she again reached the entrance by which she had gone in, it occurred to her that she must sit down and think—she must go somewhere where she could be quiet, where she could face this new sensation which had come into her life. Her club? No, not her club. She would meet there women who were interested in the same work as herself. If she lunched, and she could not be there in the lunch hour without lunching, someone would join her. There was a little pastry-cook’s where she sometimes lunched when she was in a hurry; she had never seen anybody there she knew, she would go there. To eat! No—no!—not to eat! Regina Whittaker was sure that she would never eat with relish again. So she bent her steps toward this little side-street haven, and, like all women in dire trouble, ordered tea and a muffin!