She would have said now that the earth at her feet had become insubstantial, but that she knew, in a flash, that what she saw was the very substance of the visible world; live and subtle as flame; solid as crystal and as clean. It was the same world, flat field for flat field and hill for hill; but radiant, vibrant, and, as it were, infinitely transparent.
Agatha in her moment saw that the whole world brimmed and shone and was alive with the joy that was its life, joy that flowed flood-high and yet was still. In every leaf, in every blade of grass, this life was manifest as a strange, a divine translucence. She was about to point it out to the man at her side when she remembered that he had eyes for the beauty of the earth, but no sense of its secret and supernatural light. Harding Powell denied, he always had denied, the supernatural. And when she turned to him her vision had passed from her.
They must have another tramp some day, he said. He wanted to see more of this wonderful place. And then he spoke of his recovery.
“It’s all very well,” he said, “but I can’t account for it. Milly says it’s the place.”
“It is a wonderful place,” said Agatha.
“Not so wonderful as all that. You saw how I was the day after we came. Well—it can’t be the place altogether.”
“I rather hope it isn’t,” Agatha said.
“Do you? What do you think it is, then?”
“I think it’s something in you.”
“Of course, of course. But what started it? That’s what I want to know. Something’s happened. Something queer and spontaneous and unaccountable. It’s—it’s uncanny. For, you know, I oughtn’t to feel like this. I got bad news this morning.”