“Truth to say, yes, Mr. Hambleton, I have.  I don’t wish to listen to—­anything.”

“Oh—­if you feel like that!  Your ‘Mr. Hambleton’ is enough to strike me dumb.”

“Believe me, it is the best way.”

“Again, may one ask why?”

“You are going back to your own people, to your own work.  And I to mine.”

“But that’s the very point.  My idea was to—­to combine them.”

“I guessed it.”

Jimmy smiled his ingenuous smile as he suavely asked, “And don’t you—­er—­like the idea?”

Agatha turned her wretched white face toward him.  Into it there had come a grim determination that left Jimmy quite out in the cold.

“I have no choice in liking or disliking it,” she said quite evenly.  “But there are plenty of reasons why I can’t think of it.  And you shouldn’t think of it any more.  I assure you, you are making a mistake.”

She got up as if ready to walk away, her face averted.

“Agatha!”

At the name she turned to Jim, as much as to say she would be quite reasonable if he would be.  But her face suddenly flushed gloriously.

“Agatha, dear, hear me.  I did not intend to tell you all my secret to-day; not until I should be on neutral ground, so to speak.  But I can’t let you leave me this way.”

“You will have to.  I am going back to the house.”

Up to this point, James had merely been playing tag, as it were.  The game wasn’t really on.  A little skirmishing on either side was in order.  But Agatha’s last words were the call to action.  They roused the ghost of some old Hambleton ancestor who meant not to be beaten.  Jim squared himself in the middle of the path, touched Agatha’s shoulder with the lightest, most respectful finger, and requested:  “But I would ask you, as a special favor, to stay a few minutes longer.”

Jim’s tone left Agatha no choice.  She sat down again on the pine stump, but she could not meet Jimmy’s eyes.  He stood a few feet away from her.  When he spoke, his voice was firm and steady, ringing with earnestness.  There was no doubt now but that he was in the game for all he was worth.

“Agatha, you shall not turn me down like this.  Wait until you know me better, and know yourself better.  You’ve had no time to think this matter over, and it involves a good deal, I admit.  But we have lived through a good deal together in these few weeks.  I’m here; I’m here to stay.  You can’t say now, dear, that you care nothing for me—­can you?”

[Illustration:  “You shall not turn me down like this.”]

“What is the use of all this, I ask!  You will always be my friend, my rescuer, to whom I am eternally grateful.”

Jimmy emitted a sound halfway between “Shucks” and “Damn” and swung impatiently clean round on his heels.