Mr.Swancourt began reading without waiting for her.

Then somebody glided in noiselessly; Knight softly glanced up: it was only the little kitchen-maid.

Knight thought reading prayers a bore.
He went out alone, and for almost the first time failed to recognize that holding converse with Nature's charms was not solitude.

On nearing the house again he perceived his young friend crossing a slope by a path which ran into the one he was following in the angle of the field.

Here they met.