It was not the sort of farewell he had hoped for—several of the ladies came straggling about them before they could exchange half a dozen words—but it was infinitely better than none.
"Are you going to Queensland?" Rachel asked, in a tone which said plainly—"Are you going away from me?"
"I must go," he replied; "but I shall not stay—I shall come back as quickly as possible. And you—what will you do?"
She flushed scarlet and dropped her eyes, and her lips began to quiver. The rustle of Mrs. Hardy's majestic skirts was heard approaching. It was too late for confidences.
"I hope, when I come back, I shall find you free," he whispered hurriedly, emphasising the significance of the words with the crushing clasp of his hand over hers and the eager desire in his eyes; and then he took off his cap, included all the ladies in one last silent adieu, remounted his horse, and departed.
As he rode through the bush this lovely spring morning, near enough to the waggonette to open the gates for it, but far enough away to indulge in his meditations undisturbed, he pondered many things; and particularly he wondered, with a devouring anxiety, what Rachel had been doing and thinking of since she left him so abruptly at midnight, after practically giving herself to him.
If he could have known it is doubtful if he would have felt so certain of her as he was, though nothing would have deterred him now from making the best fight in his power for the possession of her.
When, in terror of the consequences of what she had done, she broke away from him and escaped out of the ball-room, she rushed to her own room, forgetting until she dashed into the middle of an untidy litter of open boxes and portmanteaus which Miss Hale had left on the floor, that it was not hers to-night; and then she turned and sped down one of the innumerable passages into the quiet starlight outside, and sought refuge in that lonely arbour at the bottom of the garden, which already, not many hours before, had given sanctuary to these new emotions.
That she courted bronchitis and consumption, exposing her bare warm arms and bosom to the chill of a frosty night, was a trivial circumstance quite unworthy of consideration.
In this arbour she abandoned herself to the full luxury of that passion which was neither joy nor grief, and yet had the pain and ecstasy of both in the sharpest degree.