They had arranged, or rather there was a tacit understanding, that they should go out together in the afternoon.
Geoffrey was to take his gun and Beatrice a book, but it chanced that, just before dinner, as she walked back from the village, where she had gone to buy some thread to mend Effie's clothes, Beatrice came face to face with Mr.Davies.It was their first meeting without witnesses since the Sunday of which the events have been described, and, naturally, therefore, rather an awkward one.

Owen stopped short so that she could not pass him with a bow, and then turned and walked beside her.

After a remark or two about the weather, the springs of conversation ran dry.
"You remember that you are coming up to the Castle this afternoon ?" he said, at length.
"To the Castle!" she answered.

"No, I have heard nothing of it." "Did not your sister tell you she made an engagement for herself and you a week or more ago?
You are to bring the little girl; she wants to see the view from the top of the tower." Then Beatrice remembered.

Elizabeth had told her, and she had thought it best to accept the situation.