“Ah!” said Elizabeth, setting her teeth, “as I thought.”  Rising, she pursued her path along the cliff, keeping three or four hundred yards ahead, which she could easily do by taking short cuts.  It was a long walk, and Elizabeth, who was not fond of walking, got very tired of it.  But she was a woman with a purpose, and as such, hard to beat.  So she kept on steadily for nearly an hour, till, at length, she came to the spot known as the Amphitheatre.  This Amphitheatre, situated almost opposite the Red Rocks, was a half-ring of cliff, the sides of which ran in a semicircle almost down to the water’s edge, that is, at high tide.  In the centre of the segment thus formed was a large flat stone, so placed that anybody in certain positions on the cliff above could command a view of it, though it was screened by the projecting walls of rock from observation from the beach.  Elizabeth clambered a little way down the sloping side of the cliff and looked; on the stone, his back towards her, sat Owen Davies.  Slipping from stratum to stratum of the broken cliff, Elizabeth drew slowly nearer, till at length she was within fifty paces of the seated man.  Here, ensconcing herself behind a cleft rock, she also sat down; it was not safe to go closer; but in case she should by any chance be observed from above, she opened the Bible on her knee, as though she had sought this quiet spot to study its pages.

Three or four minutes passed, and Beatrice appeared round the projecting angle of the Amphitheatre, and walked slowly across the level sand.  Owen Davies rose and stretched out his hand to welcome her, but she did not take it, she only bowed, and then seated herself upon the large flat stone.  Owen also seated himself on it, but some three or four feet away.  Elizabeth thrust her white face forward till it was almost level with the lips of the cleft rock and strained her ears to listen.  Alas! she could not hear a single word.

“You asked me to come here, Mr. Davies,” said Beatrice, breaking the painful silence.  “I have come.”

“Yes,” he answered; “I asked you to come because I wanted to speak to you.”

“Yes?” said Beatrice, looking up from her occupation of digging little holes in the sand with the point of her parasol.  Her face was calm enough, but her heart beat fast beneath her breast.

“I want to ask you,” he said, speaking slowly and thickly, “if you will be my wife?”

Beatrice opened her lips to speak, then, seeing that he had only paused because his inward emotion checked his words, shut them again, and went on digging little holes.  She wished to rely on the whole case, as a lawyer would say.