But then Una's eyes had always been wistful.

Walter bent his handsome black head in its khaki cap and kissed her with the warm, comradely kiss of a brother.

He had never kissed her before, and for a fleeting moment Una's face betrayed her, if anyone had noticed.
But nobody did; the conductor was shouting "all aboard"; everybody was trying to look very cheerful.

Walter turned to Rilla; she held his hands and looked up at him.

She would not see him again until the day broke and the shadows vanished--and she knew not if that daybreak would be on this side of the grave or beyond it.
"Good-bye," she said.
On her lips it lost all the bitterness it had won through the ages of parting and bore instead all the sweetness of the old loves of all the women who had ever loved and prayed for the beloved.
"Write me often and bring Jims up faithfully, according to the gospel of Morgan," Walter said lightly, having said all his serious things the night before in Rainbow Valley.