shall find that recreant knight of yours--I mean
_mine_--at the point of death!"

At this she flits away from them, like the good little thing she is, up
a sloping bank, and so into the fields beyond, until Desmond and Monica
are as much alone as if a whole sphere divided them from their kind.
Dear little Kit! When her own time comes may she be as kindly dealt
with!

"You are angry with me still,--about last night," says Desmond, softly,
"and, I own, with cause. But I was miserable when I called you a
coquette, and misery makes a man unjust. I wrote to Kit this morning,--I
was afraid to write to you,--and she was very good to me."

"How good?" plucking a leaf from a brier, as she goes slowly, _very_
slowly--down the road.

"She brought me _you_. Do you know, Monica, I have been as unhappy as a
man can be since last I saw you,--a whole night and part of a day? Is it
not punishment enough?"

"Too much for your crime," whispers she, softly, turning suddenly
towards him and letting her great luminous eyes rest with forgiveness
upon his. She smiles sweetly, but with some timidity, because of the
ardor of the glance that answers hers. Taking her hand with an impulsive
movement impossible to restrain, Desmond presses it rapturously to his
lips. Drawing it away from him with shy haste, Monica walks on in
silence.

"If I had written to you, and not to her, would you still have been here
to-day?" asks he, presently.

"I think not."

"That is a cruel answer, is it not?"

"Would you have me belie my nature?" asks she, with quick agitation;
"would you have me grow false, secret, deceitful? My aunts trust me: am
I to prove myself unworthy of their confidence?"

"I am less to you, then, than your aunts' displeasure!"

"You are less to me than my conscience; and yet----"

With a violent effort, that betrays how far her thoughts have been
travelling in company with his, she brings herself back to the present
moment, and a recollection of the many reasons why she must not listen
to his wooing. "Why should you believe yourself anything to me?" she
asks, in a voice that quivers audibly.

"Ah, why, indeed?" returns he, bitterly. There is such pain in his voice
and face that her soul yearns towards him, and she repents of her last
words.

"I am wrong. You _are_ something to me," she says, in a tone so low that
he can scarcely hear it. But lovers' ears are sharp.

"You _mean_ that, Monica?"

"Yes," still lower.

"Then