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Six weeks after the assault, Maria became aware that she was pregnant.

Being pregnant and unmarried in the 19th century did not give her many options. She was now a fallen woman. To induce abortion, she could swallow poison or overdose on herbs and such plants as snakeroot, cohosh, or tansy. Surgery was an alternative, but society viewed it as a crime against God and nature—the “evil of the age,” as The New York Times put it. Maria ruled out telling her father, the retired police officer Robert Hovenden, who still lived in Brooklyn. She was determined to keep the knowledge of her “shame,” as she put it, from him and also from her sisters. More likely than not, the Hovenden family would have disowned her. She was in this alone.

Since the night of December 15, Maria and Cleveland had gone their separate ways. She had not spoken to or tried in any way to communicate with Cleveland. But then her “condition” made it “necessary for me to send for him . . . to inform him of the consequences of his actions.” She was determined to deal with Grover Cleveland directly—“he being the proper person to whom I could tell my trouble.”

Maria wrote Cleveland a note demanding that he come see her at Mrs. Randall’s. When he arrived at her rooms, Maria was in “despair,” and laid everything out: She told him she was pregnant, and insisted that he marry her.

Cleveland must have realized he was facing the worst jam of his life. He was apoplectic.

“What the devil are you blubbering about? You act like a baby without teeth.”

When Cleveland had calmed down and considered everything Maria was saying, he accepted some of the responsibility. According to Maria, Cleveland “told me that he would do everything which was honorable and righteous” and “promised that he would marry me.” Cleveland would later deny he said any such thing.

For the next several weeks, Maria seemed at peace. She truly believed that Cleveland was going to become her husband and their child would be born legitimate. He even supported her with small stipends. For a time, there was the illusion of a family coming together. But Cleveland hemmed and hawed. Maria sent her son Freddie to Jersey City to stay with her in-laws. Then, by mutual agreement with her bosses, she resigned from her job at Flint & Kent. The idea of standing behind the counter with her growing belly was unthinkable; it would be the talk of the town. Now was the time to disappear.

Maria gave up her apartment at Mrs. Randall’s boardinghouse and moved into rooms at 11 East Genesee Street, five blocks north of Cleveland’s apartment. There she met Mrs. William Baker, who lived on the same floor. Mrs. Baker was impressed with Maria, finding her “ladylike and intelligent”; she became a trusted confidante—and an eyewitness to the drama that would follow. During those long afternoons as winter turned to spring and Maria awaited the birth of her third child, she and Mrs. Baker talked endlessly. Maria unburdened her heart to her new neighbor. She told Mrs. Baker plenty, but not everything.

“Was she there at Mr. Cleveland’s expense?” Mrs. Baker was asked years later. In other words, was Cleveland paying the rent?

“Well, she wouldn’t say,” Mrs. Baker replied.

Maria also sought the counsel of her church. Reverend Charles Avery, her pastor at St. John’s Episcopal Church, had a genial smile and a kindly manner. He had taken over St. John’s just the year before, on Easter Sunday 1872. In his first sermon following his installation, Avery thoughtfully informed the three hundred families who made up his congregation, “I cannot ask your love in advance, but only that you will allow me to hope I may win it, which I fear I never can.” Avery came from the small village of Fredonia in Chautauqua County, so Buffalo was a huge step up for him, though he came to understand that making the case for temperance in the big city was a daunting challenge. Not surprising, given that Buffalo’s mayor at the time also owned the city’s largest malting center.

When Maria