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“I can’t,” Agnes said and pulled away from the embrace.

“But you want to?”

“I can’t feel this way.”

“Yes, you can. And you do. You can’t change it. I’ve tried, and I can’t change how I feel, Agnes. I don’t want a husband. I want a wife. I want to beherwife.”

“You can’t want that. God doesn’t–”

“I love you,” Frances interjected. “I love you, Agnes. The days you visit me are all the best days of my life, and the days you’re not here are the worst. I miss you the second you leave, and I cannot wait for you to return. I watch you in the field, working, and I wish that I could take you away from the life you don’t want. I only need you to say yes.”

“What I say or want doesn’t matter to anyone else. Why does it matter to you?”

“Because I love you,” Frances repeated. “If you tell me that you don’t feel the same way about me – and I don’t mean because you think it’s wrong, but because you don’t feel it – I will leave right now. You’ll never have to see me again. I can’t stay here another minute and watch you leave with him, so I either run with you, or I just… run.”

“No, don’t.” Agnes got closer to Frances but made no move to touch her as she stood inches away from her, dipping her head down to look at the ground.

Frances used her fingers to lift Agnes’s chin, bringing their eyes together, and rested her forehead against Agnes’s again.

“I…”

“It’s okay if you can’t say it yet,” Frances told her when Agnes was struggling. “But do you feel it?”

Agnes nodded, moving Frances’s head along with her own, and Frances breathed a sigh of relief.

“Run away with me, Agnes,” she requested softly. “We can live the life we want, not the one they want us to.”

“How? I can’t hunt like you. I can’t live in the woods.”

“I couldn’t, either. Until I had no choice. Now, I can. We won’t always live in the woods like this.” She motionedto her shelter. “I promise you, I will find a safe place for us to build a home. No one needs to know where we are.”

“I’m scared,” Agnes said.

“I know. Me too,” Frances replied. “But you have to decide because he’s on his way, Agnes. He’ll be here soon. And once he’s got you, it’ll be harder to get away. You know what he’ll expect on your wedding night.”

“My mother told me years ago, yes,” Agnes said.

“This is it.” Frances cupped her cheek again. “Run away with me.”

“I have to go home.” Agnes sniffled.

Frances pulled back and stepped away from her then, feeling her heart breaking inside her chest from the realization that this was goodbye. She’d have to pack what she could and leave before nightfall in order to have a little time to build some kind of shelter where she ended up.

“I need to bring some things with me,” Agnes added.

Frances looked up at her and asked, “What do you mean?”

“Can we leave tonight? I’ll have supper with my family. Then, I’ll wait for them all to go to sleep. I’ll bring what I can with me and meet you here. Can you ride a horse?”

“Of course,” she replied.

“We only have three. I don’t want to steal from my family, but we should be as fast as we can. If we’re walking, my father will just come looking for us, and he’s a good tracker. If we’re on the horse, we can put a good distance between us.”

“All right. I’ll pack up everything here by then, and we’ll leave.”

“We’ll have to ride through the night,” Agnes said as she wiped at her cheeks.

“We will, then,” Frances confirmed before she kissed Agnes’s forehead. “We’ll ride for however long it takes to get away from here.”