“Well, but if you ever should—I haven’t a soul in the world to care for, or who feels any special interest in me—if ever you do need it you’ll take it, won’t you, Clifford?” said the woman eagerly.
“Yes, Maria,” he answered gently, and seeing she would be deeply wounded if he refused, “if I ever find myself in a strait where it becomes necessary for me to borrow, I will come to you for help, and, believe me, I shall never forget your goodness in offering it. But there is the bell, and I must go, or I shall soon find myself on the way to New Haven with you,” he smilingly concluded, as he arose to leave.
“I’m sure ’twouldn’t be the worst cross I’ve ever had to bear if you did,” said the woman, trying to speak lightly, but with an unmistakable quaver in her tones.
“I can’t inflict it upon you this time,” the young man returned in the same strain, as he extended his hand to her in farewell, and, after promising that he would write her from time to time regarding his movements, he hurried from the train.
It was nearly midnight when Maria Kimberly reached home, where she found the squire still up and quietly reading his evening paper by the student-lamp in the dining-room.
He had arrived from his stolen trip only about an hour previous. He merely glanced up as Maria came in and expressed her surprise at finding him up so late; but he asked no questions regarding her journey, and she was determined to volunteer no information.
She had not a suspicion that he, also, had attended the commencement at Harvard, for Clifford, surmising that she knew nothing of his presence, and feeling sure that the man did not wish it known, had kept his own counsel.
But Squire Talford, although he imagined that he had been so shrewd in his movements that neither Clifford nor his housekeeper would ever learn where he had been that day, had, nevertheless, had an unexpected experience which had given him quite a shaking up in a way.
As he was hurrying away from the college grounds to catch an electric-car to take him to the railway-station, he suddenly came upon a group of people standing upon the sidewalk beside an elegant carriage to which a magnificent pair of black horses in silver-mounted harness were attached, and attended by a driver and coachman in handsome livery.