“I should think that would be a very good idea,” said the other woman.  Maria, listening listlessly, whirled about herself in the current of her own affairs, thought what a cat that woman was, and how she did not in the least care if she was a cat.

Wollaston Lee was not gone very long.  He bowed and said good-evening to Maria, then seated himself at a little distance.  The two women looked at him with sharp curiosity.  “It would be the best thing for poor Aggie if she could get her mind set on another young man,” said the woman whose niece had been jilted.

“That is so,” assented the other woman.

“There’s as good fish in the sea as has ever been caught, as I told her,” said the first woman, with speculative eyes upon Wollaston Lee.

It was not long before the train for Amity arrived.  Wollaston, with an almost imperceptible gesture, looked at Maria, who immediately arose.  Wollaston sat behind her on the train.  Just before they reached Amity he came forward and spoke to her in a low voice.  “I have to go on to Westbridge,” he said.  “Will there be a carriage at the station?”

“There always is,” Maria replied.

“Don’t think of walking up at this hour.  It is too late.  What—­” Wollaston hesitated a second, then he continued, in a whisper, “What are you going to tell your aunt?” he said.

“Nothing,” replied Maria.

“Can you?”

“I must.  I don’t see any other way, unless I tell lies.”

Wollaston lifted his hat, with an audible remark about the beauty of the evening, and passed through into the next car, which was a smoker.  The two women of the station were seated a little in the rear across the aisle from Maria.  She heard one of them say to the other, “I wonder who that girl was he spoke to?” and the other’s muttered answer that she didn’t know.

Contrary to her expectations, Maria did not find a carriage at the Amity station, and she walked home.  It was late, and the village houses were dark.  The electric lights still burned at wide intervals, lighting up golden boughs of maples until they looked like veritable branches of precious metal.  Maria hurried along.  She had a half-mile to walk.  She did not feel afraid; a sense of confusion and relief was over her, with another dawning sense which she did not acknowledge to herself.  An enormous load had been lifted from her mind; there was no doubt about that.  A feeling of gratitude and confidence in the young man who had just left her warmed her through and through.  When she reached her aunt’s house she saw a light in the sitting-room windows, and immediately she turned into the path the door opened and her aunt stood there.

“Maria Edgham, where have you been?” asked Aunt Maria.

“I have been to walk,” replied Maria.

“Been to walk!  Do you know what time it is?  It is ’most midnight.  I’ve been ‘most crazy.  I was just goin’ in to get Henry up and have him hunt for you.”