Close at hand a snowdrop drooped "its serious head." The butterfly knew its own, and lit on the meek, nunlike flower, opening and shutting its new wings in the pallid sunshine.

It had perhaps dreamed, as it lay in its chrysalis, "that life had been more sweet." Was this chill sunshine that could not quicken his wings, was this grim desert that held no goal for butterfly feet, was this one snowdrop--_all_?
Was this indeed the summer of his dreams, in the sure and certain hope of which he had spun his cocoon, and laid him down in faith?
Fay looked at it in anguish not less than Wentworth's, whose dimmed eyes saw it not at all.

She never watched a poised butterfly open and shut its wings without thinking of Michael.

The flight of a seagull across the down cut her like a lash.

He had been free once.