e 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."

"I am glad you didn't," said Maria, entering and removing her hat.
She smiled at her aunt, who continued to gaze at her with the
sharpest curiosity.

"Where have you been to walk this time of night?" she demanded.

Maria looked at her aunt, and said, quite gravely, "Aunt Maria, you
trust me, don't you?"

"Of course I do; but I want to know. I have a right to know."

"Yes, you have," said Maria, "but I shall never tell you as long as I
live where I have been to-night."

"What?"

"I shall never tell you were I have been, only you can rest assured
that there is no harm--that there has been no harm."

"You don't mean to ever tell?"

"No." Maria took a lamp from the sitting-room table, lighted it, and
went up-stairs.

"You are just like your mother--just as set," Aunt Maria called after
her, in subdued tones. "Here I've been watchin' till I was 'most
crazy."

"I am real sorry," Maria called back. "Good-night, Aunt Maria. Such a
thing will never happen again."

Directly Maria was in her own room she pulled down her window-shades.
She did not see a man, who had followed at a long distance all the
way from the station, moving rapidly up the street. It was Wollaston
Lee. He had seen, from the window of the smoker, that there was no
carriage waiting, had jumped off the train, entered the station, then
stolen out and followed Maria until he saw her safely in her home.
Then the last trolley had gone