Jane, after a shy greeting, untied the strings and opened the cover, having first carefully slipped the bolt of the door.
"You can't be too careful," she said. "You never can tell."
Reyburn stood beside her and looked in a kind of awe at the glistening white, recognized the thick texture of the satin, the rare quality of the rose-point lace with which it was adorned, caught the faint fragrance of faded orange blossoms wafting from the filmy mist of the veil as Jane lifted it tenderly; then leaned over and touched a finger to the pile of whiteness, reverently, as though he were paying a tribute at a lovely shrine.
Jane even unwrapped the little slippers, one at a time, and folded them away again, and they said no word until it was all tied back in its papers, Reyburn assisting with the strings.
"Now, ef you don't mind waitin' a minute I guess it would be safer to put it away now," she said as she slipped the bolt and ran upstairs.
She was back in a minute and sat down opposite to him, drawing out from the neck of her blouse a ribbon with a heavy glittering circlet at its end.
"Here's the ring." She laid it in his palm. He took it, wondering, a kind of awe still upon him that he should be thus handling the intimate belongings of that little unknown bride whom he had seen lying unconscious in a strange church a few short months before. How strange that all this should have come to him when many wiser, more nearly related, were trying their best to get some clue to the mystery!
He lifted the ring toward the insufficient gas jet to make out the initials inside, and copied them down in his note-book.
"Take good care of that. It is valuable," he said as he handed it back to her.
"Mebbe I better give it to you," she half hesitated.