"A big one, with currants! The very thing!" says Kit, with decision. "And she will never betray us. Reilly, in little affairs of this kind,—though sadly wanting where soups are concerned,—is quite all she ought to be."
"When will it be baked? He must get it to-night," says Monica, who is evidently afraid her lover, if not succored, will die of want before morning.
"Leave all to me," says Kit, flitting away from her through the gathering gloom to seek the lower region and its presiding goddess.
Leaving all to Kit means that when dinner is over, about half-past eight, the two Misses Beresford may be seen crossing the boundary that divides Moyne from Coole with anxious haste and a hot cake.
This last is hugged to Monica's breast, and is plainly causing her the greatest inconvenience. It is a huge cake, and has to be carried parcelwise, being much too big for the smaller basket they had, and much too small for the bigger. But Monica—though it is heavy beyond description (though, I hope, light in every other way for the sake of Reilly's reputation) and still appallingly hot—trudges along with it bravely, resisting all Kit's entreaties to be allowed to share the burden.
"Who are those coming towards us through the elms down there?" says Mr. Kelly, suddenly.
He and Brian Desmond are sitting upon a garden seat outside the dining-room windows, enjoying an after dinner cigar.
"There?" says Brian, following his glance. "Eh?—What?" There is a second pause, then, rising to his feet with much [precipitancy], he flings his cigar to the winds, and, before Owen has time to recover from his astonishment at these proceedings, is well out of sight. A turn in the lawn has hidden Brian and the advancing figures from his view.
"Monica!" says Desmond, as he reaches her; "what has brought you here at this hour? My darling! how pale and tired you look!"