She stretched herself lazily as she considered the flowers about her and wondered at their luxuriance. They were thicker and longer-stemmed than the mass of those she carried: the leaves were juicy and shining like dark swords: the last dozen of her armful had flecked her hands and dress with milky syrup. The ground, too, was black and boggy, and sucked at her feet as she moved. Suddenly she realised that the trees grew thick and close together--that the patches of sunlight were far apart--and that she had wandered farther into the wood than she had intended. She thought that she had picked enough, more than enough for Elsbeth as well as Clare; that it was time to be getting home. She had no idea of the hour.... It would not do to risk being late.... She moved forward uncertainly. She had had a blessed afternoon: she had surrendered herself to the sounds and sights and smells of the spring, to the warmth of the sun and the touch of the wind, till every sense was drunken with pleasure. But her ecstasy had been impersonal and thoughtless: she had enjoyed too completely to have had knowledge of her enjoyment. With the return to realisation of place and time, her mood was changing. She was no longer of the wood, but in it merely; wandering in the dark heart of it, no dryad returned and welcome, but a stranger, one Alwynne Durand, in thin shoes and an unsuitable dress, with the wood's flowers, not her own, in her hands. Stolen flowers--their weight was suddenly a burden to her. She felt guilty, and had an odd, sudden wish to put them down tenderly at the foot of a tree, hide them with grasses and run for her life. She laughed at the idea as she looked for the path--what were flowers for, but picking? Yet she could not get rid of the feeling that she had been doing wrong, and that even now she was being watched, and would, in due time, be caught and punished, her stolen treasures still in her hands. But wild flowers are free to all--and the wood was Roger Lumsden's wood! He had told her that he rented it. She moved backwards and forwards, turning hurriedly hither and thither, trampling the hyacinths and stumbling on the uneven ground, unreasonably flurried that she could not find any path. She could not even track her own footsteps. It was very strange, she thought, when she had penetrated so easily the depths of the wood, that the return should be so difficult. She had thought it a mere copse. She put her free hand to her eyes, scanning the wall of greenery in all directions. She fancied that at one point the trees grew less densely, and set out, scrambling over rough ground towards the faint light.