"That you will be constant to me while you are away from me, and not let other men——"
She lifted her ungloved hand, on which shone that ring "full of diamonds" which he had given her, and laid it on his mouth—or rather on his moustache.
"Now you'll make me angry if you go on," she said, with a playfully dignified and dictatorial air. "No, I won't hear any more—I am ashamed of you! after all the long time we have been engaged. As if I was a girl of that sort, indeed!"
Here the signal was given for the train to start, and Mrs. Hardy came forward to make her own adieux, and to give her last instructions to her son-in-law, who had been meekly standing apart.
As they slowly steamed out of the station, Rachel rose and comforted her bereaved lover with a last sight of her fair face, full of fun and smiles.
"Good-bye," she called gaily; "I promise."
"Thank you," he shouted back.
He lifted his hat, and kissed the tips of his fingers, and stood to watch the train disappear into the dismal waste that lay immediately beyond the station precincts. Then he walked away dejectedly to find his cab. He had grown very fond of his little sweetheart, and he anticipated the long, dull days that he would have to spend without her.
He wished Mrs. Hardy had been a little more definite as to the time when she meant to bring her home. It was not as if he were a young man, with any quantity of time to waste. However, he had her assurance that she would be true to him under any temptations that should assail her in his absence; and though too experienced to put absolute faith in that, it greatly cheered and consoled him. He stepped into his hansom, and told the driver to take him to Toorak, that he might see how the house where they were going to live together was getting on.
