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.

“I didn’t say anything to my folks, because I didn’t know how you would feel about it.  I thought I ought to ask you first.  But I am not afraid to tell, you needn’t think that, and I mean to be honorable.  If you say so, I will go right home with you and tell your folks, and then I will tell mine, and we will see what we can do.”

Maria made no answer.  She was in agony.  It seemed to her that the whisper was deafening her.

“I will leave school, and go to work right away,” said the boy, and his voice was a little louder, and full of pathetic manliness; “and I guess in a year’s time I could get so I could earn enough to support you.  I mean to do what is right.  All is I want to do what you want me to do.  I didn’t know how you felt about it.”

Then Maria turned slightly.  He leaned closer.