Agnes falls in love with Edwin Leeford - a close friend of her father's - and becomes pregnant by him. She flees her family, clutching only the locket given to her by Leeford, and eventually arrives at the seaside town where she gives birth to Oliver in the workhouse. She dies without giving her name.

Nineteen year old Sophia Myles plays the tragic Agnes Fleming:

"The story of Agnes is totally heart-breaking. I turned over the first page of the script, and I was in floods of tears. I had no idea what was in store because in the novel, Agnes just gives birth, kisses the child and promptly dies. But in Bleasdale's dramatization, there's this absolutely beautiful and tragic love story between Agnes and Edwin. She is hopelessly in love with him, but she cannot understand why he doesn't marry her."

"She is a victim of her time as in those days an unmarried mother was just doomed. It is testimony to her great strength of character that she leaves her comfortable home and stable family, to head off into the unknown, carrying a baby and having no money. It is heart-breaking stuff, but not sentimental."