"Maybe she is," returned Maud. Then she glanced at Wollaston, who was looking away, and whispered in Maria's ear: "They talk like fury about her, and her mother, too." "I don't care," Maria said, stoutly. "She was down at the station and told me how Evelyn was lost, and then she went in with me." Maud laughed her aggravating laugh again. "Well, maybe it was just as well she did," she said, "or else they would have said you and Wollaston had eloped, sure." Maria began to speak, but her voice was drowned by the rumble of the New York train on the other track. The Wardway train was late. Usually the two trains met at the station. However, the New York train had only just pulled out of sight before the Wardway train came in. As Maria climbed on the train she felt a paper thrust forcibly into her hand, which closed over it instinctively. She sat with Maud, and had no opportunity to look at it all the way to Wardway. She slipped it slyly into her Algebra. Maud's eyes were sharp. "What's that you are putting in your Algebra?" she asked. "A marker," replied Maria. She felt that Maud's curiosity was such that it justified a white lie. She had no chance to read the paper which Wollaston had slipped into her hand until she was fairly in school. Then she read it under cover of a book. It was very short, and quite manly, although manifestly written under great perturbation of spirit. Wollaston wrote: "Shall I tell your folks to-night?" Wollaston was not in Maria's classes. He was older, and had entered in advance. She had not a chance to reply until noon. Going into the restaurant, she in her turn slipped a paper forcibly into his hand. "Good land! look out!" said Maud Page. "Why, Maria Edgham, you butted right into Wollaston Lee and nearly knocked him over." What Maria had written was also short, but desperate. She wrote: "If you ever tell your folks or my folks, or anybody, I will drown myself in Fisher's Pond." A look of relief spread over the boy's face. Maria glanced at him where he sat at a distant table with some boys, and he gave an almost imperceptible nod of reassurance at her. Maria understood that he had not told, and would not, unless she bade him. On the train going home that night he found a chance to speak to her. He occupied the seat behind her, and waited until a woman who sat with Maria got off the train at a station, and also a man who had occupied the seat with him. Then he leaned over and said, ostentatiously, so he could be heard half the length of the car, "It is a beautiful day, isn't it?" Maria did not turn around at all, but her face was deadly white as she replied, "Yes, lovely." Then the boy whispered, and the whisper seemed to reach her inmost soul. "Look here, I want to do what is right, and--honorable, you know, but hang me if I know what is. It is an awful pickle." Maria nodded, still with her face straight ahead. "I don't know how it happened, for my part," the boy whispered. Maria nodded again.