“Never what?” said a voice, within two yards of her.

She started violently, and looked round.  There, his back resting against a rock, a pipe in his mouth, an open letter on his knee, and his hat drawn down almost over his eyes, sat Geoffrey.  He had left Effie to go home with Mr. Granger, and climbing down a sloping place in the cliff, had strolled along the beach.  The letter on his knee was one from his wife.  It was short, and there was nothing particular in it.  Effie’s name was not even mentioned.  It was to see if he had not overlooked it that he was reading the note through again.  No, it merely related to Lady Honoria’s safe arrival, gave a list of the people staying at the Hall—­a fast lot, Geoffrey noticed, a certain Mr. Dunstan, whom he particularly disliked, among them—­and the number of brace of partridges which had been killed on the previous day.  Then came an assurance that Honoria was enjoying herself immensely, and that the new French cook was “simply perfect;” the letter ending “with love.”

“Never what, Miss Granger?” he said again, as he lazily folded up the sheet.

“Never mind, of course,” she answered, recovering herself.  “How you startled me, Mr. Bingham!  I had no idea there was anybody on the beach.”

“It is quite free, is it not?” he answered, getting up.  “I thought you were going to trample me into the pebbles.  It’s almost alarming when one is thinking about a Sunday nap to see a young lady striding along, then suddenly stop, stamp her foot, and say, ‘No, never!’ Luckily I knew that you were about or I should really have been frightened.”

“How did you know that I was about?” Beatrice asked a little defiantly.  It was no business of his to observe her movements.

“In two ways.  Look!” he said, pointing to a patch of white sand.  “That, I think, is your footprint.”

“Well, what of it?” said Beatrice, with a little laugh.

“Nothing in particular, except that it is your footprint,” he answered.  “Then I happened to meet old Edward, who was loafing along, and he informed me that you and Mr. Davies had gone up the beach; there is his footprint—­Mr. Davies’s, I mean—­but you don’t seem to have been very sociable, because here is yours right in the middle of it.  Therefore you must have been walking in Indian file, and a little way back in parallel lines, with quite thirty yards between you.”

“Why do you take the trouble to observe things so closely?” she asked in a half amused and half angry tone.

“I don’t know—­a habit of the legal mind, I suppose.  One might make quite a romance out of those footprints on the sand, and the little subsequent events.  But you have not heard all my thrilling tale.  Old Edward also informed me that he saw your sister, Miss Elizabeth, going along the cliff almost level with you, from which he concluded that you had argued as to the shortest way to the Red Rocks and were putting the matter to the proof.”