The express by which she was going stopped twenty minutes at Beckham; but now the guard was crying, “Take your seats!”—and William had to jump out. He got up on the step outside to see as much as he could of her at the very last, and said, in an important whisper:
“But I sha’n’t know where to write to you.”
“I will let you know. And mind, William, you are not to drink—at least, not like the others!”
“All right; I won’t. I may smoke, mayn’t I?”
“Oh, yes, you may smoke, and you may ride and fish and shoot as much as you like; only do try to read a little, and don’t swear quite so much as Wilfred or Harry.”
“All right. You don’t mind my saying a big, big D—— when I get a bad fall just before the finish?”
“N—o, I’ll pass that. Now get down; the train is going, and you will be hurt.”
William jumped off, but dashed down the platform beside the moving train a minute after, panting out, as he threw his purse into the carriage:
“You must take it; I’ve taken out all I want, and you may want it. You know I took first-class when you said second. Write.”
The last impression she carried away of her life at the Grange was the memory of the big, handsome boy standing looking at the disappearing train, with an expression on his face which threatened tears when he should be out of sight of the busy crowd around him.