Presently, having fetched her hat, Beatrice, accompanied by her admirer, bearing the Life of Darwin under his arm, started to walk down to the beach. They went in silence, Beatrice just a little ahead. She ventured some remark about the weather, but Owen Davies made no reply; he was thinking, he wanted to say something, but he did not know how to say it. They were at the head of the cliff now, and if he wished to speak he must do so quickly.
"Miss Beatrice," he said in a somewhat constrained voice.
"Yes, Mr. Davies--oh, look at that seagull; it nearly knocked my hat off."
But he was not to be put off with the seagull. "Miss Beatrice," he said again, "are you going out walking next Sunday afternoon?"
"How can I tell, Mr. Davies? It may rain."
"But if it does not rain--please tell me. You generally do walk on the beach on Sunday. Miss Beatrice, I want to speak to you. I hope you will allow me, I do indeed."
Then suddenly she came to a decision. This kind of thing was unendurable; it would be better to get it over. Turning round so suddenly that Owen started, she said: "If you wish to speak to me, Mr. Davies, I shall be in the Amphitheatre opposite the Red Rocks, at four o'clock on Sunday afternoon, but I had much rather that you did not come. I can say no more."
"I shall come," he answered doggedly, and they went down the steps to the boat-shed.
"Oh, look, daddy," said Effie, "here comes the lady who was drownded with you and a gentleman," and to Beatrice's great relief the child ran forward and met them.
"Ah!" thought Geoffrey to himself, "that is the man Honoria said she was engaged to. Well, I don't think very much of her taste."
In another minute they had arrived. Geoffrey shook hands with Beatrice, and was introduced to Owen Davies, who murmured something in reply, and promptly took his departure.
They examined the canoe together, and then walked slowly up to the Vicarage, Beatrice holding Effie by the hand. Opposite the reef they halted for a minute.
"There is the Table Rock on which we were thrown, Mr. Bingham," said Beatrice, "and here is where they carried us ashore. The sea does not look as though it would drown any one to-night, does it? See!"--and she threw a stone into it--"the ripples run as evenly as they do on a pond."
She spoke idly and Geoffrey answered her idly, for they were not thinking of their words. Rather were they thinking of the strange chance that had brought them together in an hour of deadly peril and now left them together in an hour of peace. Perhaps, too, they were wondering to what end this had come about. For, agnostics, atheists or believers, are we not, most of us, fatalists at heart?