Una shook hands quietly , looking at him with wistful , sorrowful , dark-blue eyes . 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 . But at the last moment he took her face between his hands and looked deep into her gallant eyes . `` God bless you , Rilla-my-Rilla , '' he said softly and tenderly . After all it was not a hard thing to fight for a land that bore daughters like this . He stood on the rear platform and waved to them as the train pulled out . Rilla was standing by herself , but Una Meredith came to her and the two girls who loved him most stood together and held each other 's cold hands as the train rounded the curve of the wooded hill . Rilla spent an hour in Rainbow Valley that morning about which she never said a word to anyone ; she did not even write in her diary about it ; when it was over she went home and made rompers for Jims . In the evening she went to a Junior Red Cross committee meeting and was severely businesslike . `` You would never suppose , '' said Irene Howard to Olive Kirk afterwards , `` that Walter had left for the front only this morning . But some people really have no depth of feeling . I often wish I could take things as lightly as Rilla Blythe . ''
CHAPTER XVI REALISM AND ROMANCE `` Warsaw has fallen , '' said Dr. Blythe XXXXX a resigned air , as he brought the mail in one warm August day .
After aboard by for in into on through until with