noon
I am glad I put it into the closet before Brady came . '' `` Our deeds are like children that are born to us : they live and act apart from one 's own will . '' The weather of the morning , with its golden clearness , was too beautiful to last . By noon the gold had paled . The high wind which had prevailed earlier in the day subsided ; but the swelling waves , which broke with thud after thud upon the shelving beach , gave evidence of a gale still whirling somewhere off the coast . The clear-cut lines of the distant cliffs faded to dim , quiet masses . Far out on the horizon rose a line of phantom hills , -- a line which , as night drew in , moved slowly shoreward , rising as it came , shutting out sail after sail , point after point , till at last it met the land and shut out the sea itself .