Behind her two men fell into conversation.

“I guess there’s well over a foot of snow.  I thought we’d have an open winter, too.”

“Look out for them when they start in mild!”

“I was afraid this darned road would be tied up if I waited until morning.  I’m in real estate, and there’s a deal on in my town I’ve got to watch every minute....”

Even the talk between two slouch-hatted millhands, foreigners, failed at the time to strike Janet as having any significance.  They were discussing with some heat the prospect of having their pay reduced by the fifty-four hour law which was to come into effect on Monday.  They denounced the mill owners.

“They speed up the machine and make work harder,” said one.  “I think we goin’ to have a strike sure.”

“Bad sisson too to have strike,” replied the second pessimistically.  “It will be cold winter, now.”

Across the black square of the window drifted the stray lights of the countryside, and from time to time, when the train stopped, she gazed out, unheeding, at the figures moving along the dim station platforms.  Suddenly, without premeditation or effort, she began to live over again the day, beginning with the wonders, half revealed, half hidden, of that journey through the whiteness to Boston....  Awakened, listening, she heard beating louder and louder on the shores of consciousness the waves of the storm which had swept her away—­waves like crashing chords of music.  She breathed deeply, she turned her face to the window, seeming to behold reflected there, as in a crystal, all her experiences, little and great, great and little.  She was seated once more leaning back in the corner of the carriage on her way to the station, she felt Ditmar’s hand working in her own, and she heard his voice pleading forgiveness—­for her silence alarmed him.  And she heard herself saying:—­“It was my fault as much as yours.”

And his vehement reply:—­“It wasn’t anybody’s fault—­it was natural, it was wonderful, Janet.  I can’t bear to see you sad.”

To see her sad!  Twice, during the afternoon and evening, he had spoken those words—­or was it three times?  Was there a time she had forgotten?  And each time she had answered:  “I’m not sad.”  What she had felt indeed was not sadness,—­but how could she describe it to him when she herself was amazed and dwarfed by it?  Could he not feel it, too?  Were men so different?...  In the cab his solicitation, his tenderness were only to be compared with his bewilderment, his apparent awe of the feeling he himself had raised up in her, and which awed her, likewise.  She had actually felt that bewilderment of his when, just before they had reached the station, she had responded passionately to his last embrace.  Even as he returned her caresses, it had been conveyed to her amazingly by the quality of his touch.  Was it a lack all women felt in men? and were these, even in supreme moments, merely the perplexed transmitters of life?—­not life itself?  Her thoughts did not gain this clarity, though she divined the secret.  And yet she loved him—­loved him with a fierceness that frightened her, with a tenderness that unnerved her....