"
"But how?" I queried.
"If you are to disappear," said Agathemer, "why should I waste time in
explaining how. Let us disappear together, leaving no trace and let us do
it at once."
"But," I cried, "I could never consent to anything like that! You are not
in any danger. You will be manumitted by my will and you can live safely,
comfortably and at ease. Why should I drag you into I know not what
miseries, hardships and privations along with me? Tell me what to do and I
will proceed to do it. But do you stay here."
"If I told you my plan," said Agathemer, "you could not carry it out
alone. My scheme for your escape and vanishment pivots on my disappearing
along with you. If you agree, as I beg that you will, we shall both be
safe, I hope and trust; alive, able to return here if it can be arranged,
able to live elsewhere, somehow, if it cannot be arranged. If you refuse
your assent, I shall die with you or soon after you; I am resolute not to
survive you."
"I agree," I said. "I am under your orders henceforth, not you under
mine."
Agathemer at once guided me into the house and upstairs to his rooms, for
he inhabited the guest-suite next my rooms, which had been my uncle's.
"The first thing to do," he said, "is for both of us to eat heartily, for
we do not know when we shall eat again.
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