Kit's agonized glance and Monica's questioning eyes awake Mr. Desmond to a knowledge of what he has done. "How did _you_ hear of Kit's pudding?" asks Monica, looking keenly from Brian to Kit, and then back again. "Oh!--the pudding," stammers Desmond. "There! don't commit yourself," says Monica, in a tone that trembles. "Oh, Kit!" Both culprits are afraid to look at her. Does the tremble mean tears, or anger, or what? Perhaps horror at their duplicity, or contempt. Is she hopelessly angered? Then a suppressed sound reaches their ears, creating a fresh panic in their breasts. Is she positively _choking_ with indignation? Cautiously, anxiously, they glance at her, and find, to their everlasting relief, that she is convulsed with laughter. "When next you meditate forming a brilliant plot such as this," she says to Kit, "I think I should look out a more trustworthy accomplice if I were you." "Catch me having a secret with _him_ again," says Kit now her fears are appeased, turning wrathfully upon Desmond. "I quite forgot all about it, I did, indeed," exclaims he, penitently. "Forgive me this time, and I'll promise never to do it again." "And I'll promise you you shan't have the chance," says Kit, with fervor. "_Why_ was I to be deceived?" says Monica. "I think I have been very basely treated. If you, Kit, desired a clandestine meeting with Mr. Desmond, I don't see why _I_ was to be drawn into it. And it was a stupid arrangement, too: two is company, three trumpery. I know, if I had a lover, I should prefer----" "Monica!" says Kit, indignantly; but Monica only laughs the more. "It is _my_ turn now, you know," she says. "Kit had nothing to do with it: it was all my fault," says Desmond, laughing too. "If you must pour out the vials of your wrath on some one, let it be on me." "Yes, give him a good scolding, Monica," says Kit viciously, but with a lovely smile. "I am going to pick to some ferns for Aunt Pen; when I return I hope I 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?"