With downcast head, I turned homewards. Already I could discern the black
outlines of the willows on the pond's edge, and the light in my window
peeped out at me through the apple-trees in the orchard--peeped at me, and
hid again, like the eye of some man keeping watch on me--when suddenly I
heard behind me the faint swish of the rapidly parted air, and something at
once embraced and snatched me upward, as a buzzard pounces on and snatches
up a quail.... It was Alice sweeping down upon me. I felt her cheek against
my cheek, her enfolding arm about my body, and like a cutting cold her
whisper pierced to my ear, 'Here I am.' I was frightened and delighted both
at once.... We flew at no great height above the ground.

'You did not mean to come to-day?' I said.

'And you were dull without me? You love me? Oh, you are mine!'

The last words of Alice confused me.... I did not know what to say.

'I was kept,' she went on; 'I was watched.'

'Who could keep you?'

'Where would you like to go?' inquired Alice, as usual not answering my
question.

'Take me to Italy--to that lake, you remember.'

Alice turned a little away, and shook her head in refusal. At that point I
noticed for the first time that she had ceased to be transparent. And her
face seemed tinged with colour; there was a faint glow of red over its