Southern Spain; the octagonal fountain on the bare terrace dripped silver;
and an embroidery of lichen had gilded the rose-coloured tiles of the
sloping roof with all shades and tints of gold. The sun, bidding good-bye
to the day, gave back for an hour the splendour of the past.

The three went up into the bell tower and looked down; upon the old garden
of the monks, then away to the sheltering hills, with the far-off rampart
of mountains. It was beautiful there, and the bells in their open,
window-like arches, had the kindly beauty of age and experience. Angela
tapped them with pink finger-nails, and brought out a faint, musical
whisper, which seemed to breathe some secret, if only she could
understand. But she could not! She felt dull and unhappy, she could not
tell why. Certainly it could not be for such a stupid, dog-in-the-manger
reason as because Nick Hilliard was supposed to be engaged to his "boss's
widow"--a most suitable arrangement. Perhaps it was the dreamy sadness of
this; place which had taken hold of her. If there were a secret in the
musical whisper of the bells, it was a secret of the past; and it was time
to come which was clouded for Angela. There seemed to be nothing definite
in it for her to touch. Her bodily eyes looked out over the bay of Santa
Barbara, grape-purple with the wine of sunset; but her spirit saw only the
uncharted sea of the future, across which strange sunrises glimmered, and
winds cried like harps, or voices called to her in prophecies she could
not hear. Happiness which she had never known seemed to live beyond that
sea in an island palace; but the key of the palace lay fathoms deep,
fallen among rocks under deep water. When Angela had been on her way to
California, she had said to herself: "I shall be happy there living alone
in some place which I shall find, because I shall be at peace, and
disagreeable things can never come to me." But now, suddenly, she felt
that more than peace was needed. She wanted to be happy with a happiness
far removed from peace.