For a time they silently scanned the peaceful picture that lay before them. The sheltered harbor across which the faint path of moonlight quivered in the undulating ground swell that reached in from the sea; the old mill sombre and solemn and barely outlined to the right; beyond it Northaven with its scattered lights, and below them the few that twinkled in Rockhaven. Not a sound reached them except the low wave-wash at the foot of the cliff just back of where they sat. They were alone with their hopes and troubles, their joys and heartaches. It was not a time or place for immediate converse, and Winn quietly contemplated the peaceful scene while Mona covertly watched him. To her he was an unsolved enigma, and yet his earnest, honest brown eyes, his open, frank way, and his half-tender, half-cynical speeches had been for many weeks her daily thought. What oppressed him now was an added mystery. She had heard that most of his men working in the quarry had been laid off, but not for worlds would she seem so inquisitive as to ask why. And so she watched him, half hoping, half expecting, he would confide in her. "I have been out of sorts, little girl," he said suddenly, with an intuitive feeling that she expected an explanation of his silence; "and as I told you this afternoon I took a long tramp to drive my mood away. It did not do it, but something else has, and that was your church bells." "I am very glad," she responded with sudden interest, "I wish they would ring every evening." "Yes," he continued, not heeding her delicate sympathy, "they have carried me back to my boyhood and the country village near where I was born. I wish I could go back to those days and feel as I did then," he added, a little sadly, "but one can't. Life and its ambitions sweep us on, and youth is forgotten or returns only in thought. If one could only feel the keen zest of youth and enjoy small pleasures as children do, all through life, it would be worth living. I should be grateful if I were as happy and care-free as you are, Mona." "I am not very happy," she answered simply. "Did you think I was?"