The house of the Wilsons at Beverly Farms was on a bluff overlooking the sea. It was reached by a long avenue winding through pines mingled with birches and rowan trees; and stood in a clearing where all the day and all the night the sound of the waves on the cliff answered the whispering of the wind in the pine-tops. The broad piazzas of the house looked out over the sea, and gave views of the islands off shore, the ever-changing water, the beautiful curves of the sea marge, now high with defiant rocks, and now falling into sandy beaches. A level lawn, velvety and green, stretched from the house to the edge of the cliff, with here and there a rustic seat or a century plant stiff and arrogant in its lonely exile from warmer climes. On this piazza Maurice found himself, just before dinner on the evening of his arrival, walking up and down with Berenice. It was still cool enough to make the exercise grateful. "It is so delightful to have the weather warm enough to be out of doors without being all bundled up," she said, looking over the sea, cold green and gray in the declining light. "The water doesn't look very warm," Maurice responded, following her gaze. "No, it isn't exactly summer yet," she replied lightly. "Do you know," she added, turning to meet his eyes, "I can't help thinking how different this is from the last time we were together away from Boston." "When we were at Brookfield?" "Yes." "It is different; more different to me than you can have any idea of. Then I was a cog in a machine; now I am my own master." They walked to the end of the piazza, turned, and came down again. They were facing the light now, and her face shone with the pale glow of the declining day. In her black dress, with a soft shawl thrown about her, she was dazzling; and Maurice found it difficult not to take her in his arms then and there. "It must have been a strange feeling," she observed thoughtfully, "to know that you were not master of your own movements, but had to do as you were told, whether you approved of it or not." "Strange," he echoed, a sense of slavery coming over him which was far stronger than anything he had felt while the bondage lasted, "it was intolerable!" "Yet you endured it?" she returned, regarding him curiously. "Yes, I endured it. In the first place, I thought that it was my duty; and in the second, it was not so hard until I had seen"-- "Well, until you had seen?"-- "Until I had seen you, I was going to say." Berenice flushed, and tossed her head. "You have caught a pretty trick of paying compliments, Mr. Wynne." "No," he answered with gravity, "I have only the mistaken temerity to say the truth." She regarded him with a mocking light in her deep, velvety eyes. "And is it the truth that you have given up your religion because you have seen me?"