Then came the last night before their departure; the evening before the day on which they were to go from Pollington to London, and from London to Plymouth.  All the heavy packages, and all the clothes had, of course, been put on board the Goldfinder in the London docks.  The pleasant task of preparation was at an end, and they were now to go forth upon their hard labours.  Caldigate had become so intimate with the family, that it seemed as though a new life had sprung up for him, and that as he had parted from all that he then had of a family at Folking, he was now to break away from new ties under the doctor’s roof.  They had dined early, and at ten o’clock there was what Mrs. Shand called a little bit of supper.  They were all of them high in heart, and very happy,—­testifying their affection to the departing ones by helping them to the nicest bits, and by filling their tumblers the fullest.  How it happened, no one could have said, but it did happen that, before the evening was over, Maria and Caldigate were together in a little room behind the front parlour.  What still remained of their luggage was collected there, and this last visit had probably been made in order that the packages might be once more counted.

‘It does seem so odd that you should be going,’ she said.

‘It is so odd to me that I should ever have come.’

‘We had always heard of you since Dick went to Cambridge.’

’I knew that there were so many of you, and that was all.  Brothers never talk of their sisters, I suppose.  But I seem to know you now so well!  You have been so kind to me!’

‘Because you are Dick’s friend.’

‘I didn’t suppose that it was anything else.’

’That’s not nice of you, Mr. Caldigate.  You know that we are all very fond of you.  We shall be so anxious to hear.  You will be good to him, won’t you?’

‘And he to me, I hope.’

’I think you are steadier than he is, and can do more for him than he can for you.  I wonder, shall we ever see each other again, Mr. Caldigate?’

‘Why not?’

’New South Wales is so far, and you will both marry there, and then you will not want to come back.  I hope I may live to see dear Dick again some day.’

‘But only Dick?’

‘And you too, if you would care about it.’

‘Of course I should care about it,’ he said.  And as he said so, of course he put his arm round her waist and kissed her.  It did not mean much.  She did not think it meant much.  But it gave a little colouring of romance to that special moment of her life.  He, when he went up to his bed, declared to himself that it meant nothing at all.  He still had those large eyes clear before him, and was still fixed in his resolution to come back for them when some undefined point of his life should have passed by.

‘Now,’ said Dick Shand, as they were seated together in a third-class railway carriage on the following morning, ’now I feel that I am beginning life.’