What does Goodman Brown mean when he says, "Faith kept me back a while" in Hawthorne's story, Young Goodman Brown?

In Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown,
Goodman Brown is the member of a Puritan community who is out one evening on "an
errand." As he prepares to leave, his wife, Faith, puts her head near her new husband's
ear and entreats him to stay home. He tells her he must go, but
insists that if she stays home and says her prayers, all will be
well.

Say thy
prayers, dear Faith, and go to bed at dusk, and no harm will come to
thee.

As he leaves he looks
back, and there is foreshadowing in his comment:

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She talks of dreams. Methought, as she spoke,
there was trouble in her face, as if a dream had warned her what work is to be done
tonight. But no, no!

This
implies that Brown, for all of his encouragement regarding how his wife can keep herself
safe, he is planning to partake in something he should
not be doing; we find this in "warned her what work is to
be done." This also foreshadows what happens in the middle of the woods, when
it appears that there is a Black Mass. However, when it is over, Brown is not sure if it
was a dream or not.

As Brown walks along (in the forest,
where Puritans believed the devil resided and therefore avoided the place), the narrator
describes that Brown "passed a crook in the road." This would indicate a bend. The road
to heaven is said to be "straight and narrow," while the road to hell is winding and
wide. In that moment, Brown meets a man in "grave and decent attire, seated at the foot
of an old tree" who takes his place comfortably, it seems, at Brown's side as they walk
on. (This man is allegedly the devil.) The man complains that Brown is late; Brown
responds, "Faith kept me back awhile," and we can assume that he means it
literally—"I was late because my wife wanted to talk with
me."

We might also assume that the premonition Brown
thought he read on his wife's face made her fearful to let him go and so she tried to
delay him.

However, we might also perceive this as a
figurative statement, a href="http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/double%20entendre?fromAsk=true&o=100074">double
entendre. While "Faith" is his wife's name, the word starts the sentence and
so it must be capitalized. Looking at this statement figuratively, it may not refer to
his wife at all, but may refer, rather, to a struggle Brown had
with his soul's faith—in deciding whether to come into the woods for this meeting and
journey, or to stay at home as he wisely counsels his wife to
do.

While Brown believes he can consort with this man in
the forest and come out unscathed, Hawthorne seems to be saying that it is not possible.
As the scripture warns...

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No one can serve two masters. (Matthew 6:24 -
NIV)

Ironically, Brown
believes he is the only faithful person in
town when he returns, but his time spent in the company of evil has changed him. If only
he had listened to "faith" when it/she spoke to him.