“Work to do!  But you’ll share my work—­it’s nothing without you.”

She shook her head.  “I knew you couldn’t understand.  You don’t realize how impossible it is.  I don’t blame you—­I suppose a man can’t.”

She was not upbraiding him, she spoke quietly, in a tone almost lifeless, yet the emotional effect of it was tremendous.

“But,” he began, and stopped, and was swept on again by an impulse that drowned all caution, all reason.  “But you can help me—­when we are married.”

“Married!” she repeated.  “You want to marry me?”

“Yes, yes—­I need you.”  He took her hands, he felt them tremble in his, her breath came quickly, but her gaze was so intent as seemingly to penetrate to the depths of him.  And despite his man’s amazement at her hesitation now that he had offered her his all, he was moved, disturbed, ashamed as he had never been in his life.  At length, when he could stand no longer the suspense of this inquisition, he stammered out:  “I want you to be my wife.”

“You’ve wanted to marry me all along?” she asked.

“I didn’t think, Janet.  I was mad about you.  I didn’t know you.”

“Do you know me now?”

“That’s just it,” he cried, with a flash of clairvoyance, “I never will know you—­it’s what makes you different from any woman I’ve ever seen.  You’ll marry me?”

“I’m afraid,” she said.  “Oh, I’ve thought over it, and you haven’t.  A woman has to think, a man doesn’t, so much.  And now you’re willing to marry me, if you can’t get me any other way.”  Her hand touched his coat, checking his protest.  “It isn’t that I want marriage—­what you can give me—­I’m not like that, I’ve told you so before.  But I couldn’t live as your—­mistress.”

The word on her lips shocked him a little—­but her courage and candour thrilled him.

“If I stayed here, it would be found out.  I wouldn’t let you keep me.  I’d have to have work, you see, or I’d lose my self-respect—­it’s all I’ve got—­I’d kill myself.”  She spoke as calmly as though she were reviewing the situation objectively.  “And then, I’ve thought that you might come to believe you really wanted to marry me—­you wouldn’t realize what you were doing, or what might happen if we were married.  I’ve tried to tell you that, too, only you didn’t seem to understand what I was saying.  My father’s only a gatekeeper, we’re poor—­poorer than some of the operatives in the mill, and the people you know here in Hampton wouldn’t understand.  Perhaps you think you wouldn’t care, but—­” she spoke with more effort, “there are your children.  When I’ve thought of them, it all seems impossible.  I’d make you unhappy—­I couldn’t bear it, I wouldn’t stay with you.  You see, I ought to have gone away long ago.”