"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.

Then, picking up the cake, he goes back again to where Mr. Kelly is
still awaiting him.

CHAPTER XXVII.

How Monica's gift receives due attention, and is thoroughly
appreciated; and how a torpedo falls into a morning-room at Moyne.

"Well," says Kelly, "was it Miss Beresford?"

"Yes, and her sister. I saw them back to the boundary fence, but they
would let me go no farther. It was rather----"

"What on earth have you got there?" says his friend, sticking his
eyeglass in his eye, and staring with bent head and some suspicion at
the mysterious thing in Desmond's arms.

"This! oh, ah! yes." Then, desperately, "Kelly, if you laugh at it I'll
never forgive you."

Mr. Kelly drops the eyeglass and looks afflicted.

"My dear fellow, do I _ever_ laugh?" he says.

"Well, it--it's _a cake_!" says Brian, who (in spite of the warning just
delivered to his friend) is now indulging in wild mirth and can scarcely
speak for laughter. "She--Monica--heard we were boycotted, and, thinking
we were starving, the dear angel! she brought this up herself to us."

"Desmond, I'm ashamed of you," says Kelly, who has not moved a muscle of
his face. "Such an action as hers calls for reverence,--not this
unseemly gayety."

"It's not the action I'm laughing at," says Brian, still convulsed;
"it's the _cake_. The action is divine--the cake hot!" Here he sinks
upon the garden-seat again, as if exhausted, and dries his eyes.

"I see nothing to laugh at in that, either. It seems an excellent cake,
and, as you say, _hot_," says Mr. Kelly, prodding it meditatively with
his finger,--"a merit in a cake of this sort, I should say; and nicely
browned, too, as far as I can see. I can see, too, that it is quite the
biggest cake I ever made acquaintance with. _Another_ merit! Did she
carry it herself all the way?"

"All the way, poor darling! and just because she was afraid we should
be hungry." Mr. Desmond's laughter has subsided, and he now looks rather
absent. "It quite weighed her down," he says, in a low tone.

"Poor child! I sai