Agatha's Aunt

by Harriet L. Smith

"I've got to get to the road somehow. Then I can hail the first wagon that passes, and send some one over here to look for that boy." He realized that the thing was simpler in the statement than in the doing. The last road they had crossed was at least half a mile from where he stood, and to grope his way unguided over half a mile of open country was a desperate undertaking. He was not even sure of the points of the compass.

Forbes was angry to find himself trembling. He took a stronger grip upon his self-control, and racked his brain for any information that would be of service. Howard had spoken of a south wind that morning and Forbes was under the impression that when they returned home from their jaunts up into the hills, they walked toward the setting sun. He wet his finger and held it up to test the direction of the breeze. He was likely to go wrong, he knew, but anything was better than inactivity.

Stumblingly and with his hands outstretched, he started on his way. His progress was slow. At first he was continually halted by imaginary obstacles from which he shrank till his groping hands convinced him that the way was clear. Resolving on bolder tactics, he marched along at a swinging pace till a collision with a stalwart pine sent him reeling back, gasping and half stunned. Again he tried caution and after an interminable half-hour abandoned it, as intolerably slow. He picked up a rotting branch over which he had stumbled, and waving this before him to make sure that no tree barred his way, he found himself making very creditable speed for a blind man without a guide.

After a little, again he halted, thinking he heard a faint, wailing cry. He strained his ears, his heart thumping. "Howard!" he shouted. "Howard!" He wondered if his nerves were playing him a trick, or whether he really did hear a second time, that faint sound of distress. He started on at a reckless pace, brandishing his stick before him, and occasionally shouting Howard's name.

So utterly had the thought of his own safety passed from his mind that a second collision was only to be expected. But this time it was not a tree, whose impact sent him staggering backward, but a human form. Involuntarily he dropped his stick, catching at the nearest object to save himself, and was aware that two hands had seized him in a clutch as desperate as his own. For a moment they clung together in an embrace like the locked clasp of two drowning swimmers. Then a voice deep down in Forbes' consciousness said, "Good God, it's a woman."

As his head steadied he knew he was not mistaken. There was a smothering quantity of hair for one thing and it seemed to be everywhere at once. When he moved just a little to get away from it, he put his cheek against another cheek of exquisite smoothness. Surprise rendered him incapable of moving, and standing like a statue, he made other interesting discoveries. The woman in his arms was breathing in long-drawn gasps like sobs. He could feel the convulsive straining of her chest against his, as her breath came and went. Under his hand her heart plunged like some frantic creature in a trap. Then he realized that she was trying to speak.

"You fool," she could only whisper it, with that strange sobbing breath. "You fool! Oh, you fool!"

"My dear girl!" Forbes remonstrated. He could not have told why he was so sure of the fitness of this form of address, except that the curves of the pliant body, that lay limp against his heart, were somehow eloquent of youth. "I don't understand you."