“Well, I am glad of that,” said Wollaston.  “I suppose you like your work.”

“Yes.”

“After all, work is the main thing,” said Wollaston.

“Yes,” assented Maria, eagerly.

Wollaston returned suddenly to the original topic.  “Were you actually running away because you heard I was coming?” he said.

“Yes, I suppose I was,” Maria replied, in a hopeless, defiant sort of fashion.

“Do you actually know anybody in Springfield?”

“No.”

“Have you much money with you?”

“I had fifteen dollars and a few cents before I paid my fare here.”

“Good God!” cried Wollaston.  Then he added, after a pause of dismay, almost of terror, during which he looked at the pale little figure beside him, “Do you realize what might have happened to you?”

“I don’t think I realized much of anything except to get away,” replied Maria.

Wollaston took her hand again and held it firmly.  “Now listen to me, Maria,” he said.  “On Monday I shall have to begin teaching in the Westbridge Academy.  I don’t see how I can do anything else.  But now listen.  I give you my word of honor, I will not show by word or deed that you are anything to me except a young lady who used to live in the same village with me.  I shall have to admit that.”

“I am not anything else to you,” Maria flashed out.

“Of course not,” Wollaston responded, quietly.  “But I give you my word of honor that I will make no claim upon you, that I will resign my position when you say the word, that I will keep the wretched, absurd secret until you yourself tell me that you wish for—­an annulment of the fictitious tie between us.”

Maria sat still.

“You will not think of running away now, will you?” Wollaston said, and there was a caressing tone in his voice, as if he were addressing a child.

Maria did not reply at once.

“Tell me, Maria,” said Wollaston.  “You will not think of doing such a desperate thing, which might ruin your whole life, when I have promised you that there is no reason?”

“No, I will not,” Maria said.

Wollaston rose and went nearer the electric light and looked at his watch.  Then he came back.  “Now, Maria, listen to me again,” he said.  “I have some business in Ridgewood.  I would not attend to it to-night but I have made an appointment with a man and I don’t see my way out of breaking it.  It is about a house which I want to rent.  Mother doesn’t like the boarding-house at Westbridge, and in fact our furniture is on the road and I have no place to store it, and I am afraid there are other parties who want to rent this house, that I shall lose it if I do not keep the appointment.  But I have only a little way to go, and it will not keep me long.  I can be back easily inside of half an hour.  The next train to Amity stops here in about thirty-seven minutes.  Now I want you to go into the waiting-room, and sit there until I come back.  Can I trust you?”