And Mr. Kingston bore with extreme complacency the jokes of his club friends on his defection from that faith in the superior advantages of celibacy, which he and some of them had held in common; for he knew they all admired his lady-love extravagantly, if they did not actually go so far as to envy him her possession. And he attended her wherever she went with the utmost assiduity.
When the winter was nearly over, an event occurred in the Hardy family which made a change in this state of things. Mrs. Thornley, the second daughter, who lived in the country, having married a wealthy landowner, who preferred all the year round to manage his own property, presented Mrs. Hardy with her first grandchild; and being in rather delicate health afterwards, wrote to beg her mother to come and stay with her, and of course to bring Rachel.
To this invitation Mrs. Hardy responded eagerly by return of post, and bade Rachel pack up quickly for an early start. Rachel was delighted with the prospect, even though it involved her separation from her betrothed; and her preparations were soon completed. Mr. Hardy was handed over to his daughter Beatrice, "to be kept till called for;" one old servant was placed in charge of the Toorak house, and others on board wages; and Mrs. Hardy, paying a round of farewell calls, intimated to her friends that she was likely to make a long visit.
Rachel rose early on the day of her departure. It was a very lovely morning in the earliest dawn of spring, full of that delicate, delicious, champagny freshness which belongs to Australian mornings. She opened her window, while yet half dressed, to let in the sweet air blowing off the sea.
Far away the luminous blue of the transparent sky met the sparkle of the bluer bay, where white sails shone like the wings of a flock of sea-birds. Below her, spreading out from under the garden terraces, far and wide, lay Melbourne in a thin veil of mist and smoke, beginning to flash back the sunshine from its spiky forest of chimney stacks and towers. And close by, through an opening in the belt of pinus insignis which enclosed Mr. Hardy's domain, and where just now a flock of king parrots were noisily congregating after an early breakfast on almond blossoms, she could see the dusty mess surrounding the nucleus of her future home, and the workmen beginning their day's task of chipping and chopping at the stones which were to build it; even they were picturesque in this glorifying atmosphere. How bright it all was! Her heart swelled with childish exultation at the prospect of a journey on such a day.
As for Mr. Kingston, to be left behind to stroll about Collins Street disconsolately by himself, just now she did not give him a thought.
Two or three hours later, however, when she and her aunt, accompanied by "Ned"—who had no office, unfortunately for him, and was therefore driven by his wife to make himself useful when opportunity offered—arrived at Spencer Street, there was Mr. Kingston on the platform waiting to see the last of her. If she was able to leave him without any severe pangs of regret and remorse, he for his part was by no means willing to let her go.
"You will write to me often," he pleaded, when, having placed her in a corner of the ladies' carriage, he rested his arms on the window for a last few words. Mrs. Hardy was leaning out of the opposite window, deeply interested in the spectacle of an empty Williamstown train patiently waiting for its passengers and its engine.
"Yes," said Rachel slowly; "but you must remember I shall be in the country, and shall have no news to make letters of."
"I don't want news," he replied with a shade of darkness in his eager face. "Pray don't give me news—that's a kind of letter I detest. I want you to write about yourself."