Regina's face broke into a smile. "The least as ever was," she replied. So the two went into the dining-room, where, as usual, the refreshment tray was set out upon the table. Julia, with a laughing declaration that she did not want even the least as ever was, went gayly upstairs to her bedroom. "I shall be very glad to get away," said Alfred, sitting on the edge of the oaken dining-table and holding his whisky-and-soda up to the light. "I want a change badly this year. We are not as young as we were, Queenie; I've taken a lot out of myself lately." "You've been so busy." "Yes, we've never had such a good year in business as the last one, but there's something wrong with Chamberlain." "How wrong?" "I don't know, I can't make it out. Whether there's a screw loose at home, or whether his wife's health is worrying him, I don't know." "Does she own to being ill?" "No, never. This morning I quite offended her by telling her that she did not look very well." "And they are not going away till September?" "No, she has just come back." "She has been to the sea?" "Yes." "Then she came up specially for Maudie's wedding?" "I suppose so. I did not know she had been away till Chamberlain told me this morning. He seems dull and gloomy--ah, there's a screw loose there, but I don't know just where it is. Anyway, I know I want my holiday very badly this year and glad I shall be when we have packed up and are off for La Belle France." "And I," said Regina, with a sigh which, though quickly suppressed, was full of meaning. Somehow, she could not sleep that night; during the day some of her most cherished ideals had been ruthlessly torn up by the roots. Never in all her life before had she had even so much as a suspicion of her noble Alfred's matrimonial integrity, and she had come to see flaws in her own life and rents in her own robes. Indeed, had she not been, as it were, aroused out of sleep, the regeneration of women had been like to cost her very dear. But, God be thanked! she had been awakened in time, and in future she would leave the great question of womanhood to look after itself, and she would devote her time and thought and the use of her astute brain to regaining her husband's love. "Think," her thoughts ran, "think--Maudie is married, Julia is young and beautiful, and fascinating to the opposite sex, you cannot hope to keep her long in the home nest; think what your life would be living alone with a husband whose heart was wholly gone from you." CHAPTER XXI DEAR DIEPPE There is occasionally a time in our life which proves a veritable oasis in a desert of doubt and suspicion.