“Where do you come from?” inquired the young clergyman, and his tone was more severe still.

“From Edgham, New Jersey,” replied Gladys.

“Who are you?” inquired the clergyman.

“I ain’t no account,” replied Gladys.  “All our folks git talked about, but she’s different.”

“I suppose you are her maid,” said the clergyman, noting with quick eye the difference in the costumes of the two girls.

“Call it anything you wanter,” said Gladys, indifferently.  “I ain’t goin’ to have her talked about, nohow.”

“Come, Maria,” said Wollaston, but Maria did not respond even to his strong, nervous pull on her arm.  She sobbed convulsively.

“No, that girl does not go one step, young man,” said the clergyman.  He advanced closely, and laid a hand on Maria’s other arm.  Although small in body and mind, he evidently had muscle.  “Come right in the house,” said he, and Maria felt his hand on her arm like steel.  She yielded, and began following him, Wollaston in vain trying to hold her back.

Gladys went behind Wollaston and pushed vigorously.  “You git right in there, the way he says, Wollaston Lee,” said she.  “You had ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

Before the boy well knew what he was doing he found himself in a small reception-room lined with soberly bound books.  All that was clear in his mind was that he could not hinder Maria from entering, and that she must not go into the house alone with Gladys and this strange man.

A man had been standing in the doorway of the house, waiting the entrance of the clergyman.  He was evidently a servant, and his master beckoned him.

“Call Mrs. Jerrolds, Williams,” he said.

“What is your name?” he asked Maria, who was sobbing more wildly than ever.

“Her name is Maria Edgham,” replied Gladys, “and his is Wollaston Lee.  They both live in Edgham.”

“How old are you?” the clergyman asked of Wollaston; but Gladys cut in again.

“He’s nineteen, and she’s goin’ on,” she replied, shamelessly.

“We are neither of us,” began Wollaston, whose mind was in a whirl of anger of confusion.

But the clergyman interrupted him.  “I am ashamed of you, young man,” he said, “luring an innocent young girl to New York and then trying to lie out of your responsibility.”

“I am not,” began Wollaston again; but then the man who had stood in the door entered with a portly woman in a black silk tea-gown.  She looked as if she had been dozing, or else was naturally slow-witted.  Her eyes, under heavy lids, were dull; her mouth had a sleepy, although good-natured pout, like a child’s, between her fat cheeks.

“I am sorry to trouble you, Mrs. Jerrolds,” said the clergyman, “but I need you and Williams for witnesses.”  Then he proceeded.