Nature in the raw did not appeal to Miss Finch. She hated long walks. She hated sitting on the grass; while sandwiches, without an accompanying cup of tea, were as ashes to her taste. The others accepted her excuses with fortitude, and left her at home to see that Phemie did not set the house afire, and to grope wearily toward a solution of her vexing problem. Howard, having stuffed his pockets with a generous proportion of the sandwiches, shouldered his fishing rod and departed to make the most of his holiday. And while the fragrant freshness of the night still lingered in the air, Forbes and Agatha set out in the direction of the woods.
The serene confidence of her morning vigil still enfolded Agatha. She walked as if keeping time to music, inaudible to all ears but her own. Forbes had insisted on carrying the basket of lunch which also contained a book or two, in case their mood should take a literary turn. Agatha kept fast hold of his arm, the better to steer his steps, and he thought there was a hint of friendliness in the firm clasp. The lonely and unhappy man felt a disproportionate sense of gratitude.
They walked and rested, strolled on and rested again. Neither was inclined to talk. Forbes had plenty to occupy his thoughts, and Agatha, too, was reflective. She realized that the time was at hand when she must confess to Forbes the deception she had practised on him, or else allow him to go out of her life altogether. Neither alternative was agreeable, but the latter was unthinkable.
A scheme occurred to her so in harmony with her native audacity that she dallied with it lovingly, before reluctantly renouncing it as impracticable. She could tell Forbes that she expected a visit from her grand-niece, Agatha Kent, and prejudice him in favor of the newcomer by assuring him of the extraordinary likeness existing between the twentieth-century Agatha and her girlhood self. After the new Agatha's arrival, she could leave him more and more to the society of the younger woman, withdrawing by degrees into the background until her sudden demise would hardly shock him, though he would naturally feel more or less responsible for consoling her namesake and heir. Agatha's final rejection of the plan was due less to doubt of her ability to act the dual rôle, or to manage the embarrassing details of her own interment, than to the realization that if her intimacy with Forbes was to continue, it must be established on a foundation of absolute truth. This deception on which she had entered so light-heartedly, had its sole excuse in the impermanence of their relationship. Before their friendship could become real there must be perfect understanding between them.
They ate their sandwiches shortly after noon, washing them down with deliciously cool water from a convenient spring. The day had grown warm and very still. "It feels as if a thunder-storm might be brewing," Forbes remarked, breaking one of the periods of friendly silence.
"I think not," Agatha answered in a dreamy voice. "Don't you love this stillness here in the shade? It's perfect, perfect!"
"'A book of verses underneath the bough,
A loaf of bread, a jug of wine—and thou,'"
quoted Forbes inevitably. He was laughing but the lines stirred her, and to disguise the fact she spoke nonchalantly.
"There is a book of poems in the basket, but I don't care for reading to-day, do you? It's one of the times when you feel everything that has ever been written and more too. You simply want to sit and think how wonderful it is to be alive."
"By jove, it's you that's wonderful," Forbes exclaimed. "That sensitiveness wears off with most people long before they're my age, to say nothing of yours. But you feel the thrill of life and the mystery and the adventure, as if you were a girl."