Maria took the change and the slip and put them in her pocket-book, and the conductor passed on with a quick, almost imperceptible backward glance at her.  Maria sat very still.  The child who had got on at Amity began to wail again, and its outcries filled the whole car.  To Maria it seemed like the natural outburst of an atmosphere overcharged with woe, and the impotent rage and regret of the whole race, as a cloud is charged with electricity.  She felt that she herself would like to burst into a wild wail, and struggle and wrestle against fate with futile members, as the child fought against its mother with its fat legs in shoes too large, and its bemittened hands.  However, she began to get a certain comfort from the rapid motion.  She continued to stare out of the window at the landscape, which fast disappeared under the gathering shadows.  The car lamps were lit.  Maria still looked, however, out of the window; the lights in the house windows, and red and green signal-lights, gave her a childish interest.  She forgot entirely about herself.  She turned her back upon herself and her complex situation of life with infinite relief.  She did not wonder what she would do when she reached Ridgewood.  She did not think any more of herself.  It was as if she had come into a room of life without any looking-glasses, and she was no longer visible to her own consciousness.  She did not look at the other passengers.  All that was evident to her of the existence of any in the car besides herself was the unceasing wail of the child, and its mother’s half-soothing, half-scolding voice.  She did not see the passengers who boarded the train at the next station beyond Amity, and that Wollaston Lee was one of them.  Indeed, she might not at once have recognized him, although the man retained in a marked degree the features of the boy.  Wollaston had grown both tall and broad-shouldered, and had a mustache.  He was a handsome fellow, well dressed, and with an easy carriage, and he had an expression of intelligent good-humor which made more than one woman in the car look at him.  Although Maria did not see him, he saw her at once, and recognized her, and his handsome face paled.  The ridiculous complexity of his position towards her had not tended to make him very happy.  He had kept the secret as well as Maria; for him, as for her, a secret was a heavy burden, almost amounting to guilt.  He continued to glance furtively at her from time to time.  He thought that she was very pretty, and also that there was something amiss with her.  He, as well as the girl, had entirely gotten over his boyish romance, but the impulse to honorable dealing and duty towards her had not in the least weakened.

When the train stopped at Ridgewood he rose.  Maria did not stir.  Wollaston stopped, and saw the conductor touch Maria, and heard him say, “This is your station, lady.”