noon
It was not long , however , before I came to the conclusion that she has re-invented _ the kite _ -- for she had almost certainly never seen one -- and I presently sighted her holding the string in the midfield . Her invention resembles the kind called ` swallow-tail ' of old . * * * * * But mostly it was on the lake that I saw her , for there we chiefly lived , and occasionally there were guilty approaches and _ rencontres _ , she in her boat , I in mine , both being slight clinker-built Montreux pleasure-boats , which I had spent some days in overhauling and varnishing , mine with jib , fore-and-aft mainsail , and spanker , hers rather smaller , one-masted , with an easy-running lug-sail . It was no uncommon thing for me to sail quite to Geneva , and come back from a seven-days ' cruise with my soul filled and consoled with the lake and all its many moods of bright and darksome , serene and pensive , dolorous and despairing and tragic , at morning , at noon , at sunset , at midnight , a panorama that never for an instant ceased to unroll its transformations , I sometimes climbing the mountains as high as the goat-herd region of hoch-alpen , once sleeping there . And once I was made very ill by a two-weeks ' horror which I had : for she disappeared in her skiff , I being at the Château , and she did not come back ; and while she was away there was a tempest that turned the lake into an angry ocean , and , ah my good God , she did not come . At last , half-crazy at the vacant days of misery which went by and by , and she did not come , I set out upon a wild-goose quest , of her -- of all the hopeless things the most hopeless , for the world is great -- and I sought and did not find her ; and after three days I turned back , recognising that I was mad to search the infinite , and coming near the Château , I saw her wave her handkerchief from the island-edge , for she divined that I had gone to seek her , and she was watching for me : and when I took her hand , what did she say to me , the Biblical simpleton ? -- ` Oh you of little Faith ! '