What Maria had written was also short, but desperate. She wrote:
“If you ever tell your folks or my folks, or anybody, I will drown myself in Fisher's Pond.”
A look of relief spread over the boy's face. Maria glanced at him where he sat at a distant table with some boys, and he gave an almost imperceptible nod of reassurance at her. Maria understood that he had not told, and would not, unless she bade him.
On the train going home that night he found a chance to speak to her. He occupied the seat behind her, and waited until a woman who sat with Maria got off the train at a station, and also a man who had occupied the seat with him. Then he leaned over and said, ostentatiously, so he could be heard half the length of the car, “It is a beautiful day, isn't it?”
Maria did not turn around at all, but her face was deadly white as she replied, “Yes, lovely.”
Then the boy whispered, and the whisper seemed to reach her inmost soul. “Look here, I want to do what is right, and—honorable, you know, but hang me if I know what is. It is an awful pickle.”
Maria nodded, still with her face straight ahead.
“I don't know how it happened, for my part,” the boy whispered.
Maria nodded again.
“I didn't say anything to my folks, because I didn't know how you would feel about it. I thought I ought to ask you first. But I am not afraid to tell, you needn't think that, and I mean to be honorable. If you say so, I will go right home with you and tell your folks, and then I will tell mine, and we will see what we can do.”