"It is a fine one, isn't it?" says Kit. "But give it to me now, Monica," taking the cake from her, "while you talk to Brian: when you are ready to come home, I can give it to him."
So saying, this inestimable child withdraws herself and Monica's offering to a safe distance, and pretends for the remainder of the interview an absorbing interest in some wild flowers growing near.
"I have only a moment to stay," says Monica, nervously. "I shall be missed; and now I have seen you safe and unhurt," with a very sweet smile, "I shall be able to sleep. But all day long I have been haunted by timid thoughts," she sighs.
"I doubt it was a sorry day for you, that first one when we met," says Desmond, remorsefully. "I have brought you only trouble. By and by you will regret you ever knew me."
"Do not say that. I have no regrets,—none! Even if—if—we cannot be—" reddening vividly, "more to each other than we are now, I can still be happy in the thought that you love me and are near me, and that I can sometimes, in spite of every one—" with a recklessness that sits very funnily upon her—"see you."
"But we shall be more to each other, Monica," says the young man, earnestly. "We shall be all in all to each other. No human being has the right to separate two hearts for the sake of a mere whim."
"There are so many things. But now, indeed, I must go. Good-night."
"Good-night, my own. But I shall go with you as far as the boundary fence."
"No, no, indeed!"
"But indeed I shall!" and of course he has his own way, and parts from her and Kit there, and answers her parting injunction "to take care of himself for her sake"—this last very low—with a lingering lover's kiss, and watches the two slight figures with a beating heart, until they are out of sight.