“You must believe me!  And the child, Janet,—­our child—­”

“If the world was right,” she said, “I could have this child and nobody would say anything.  I could support it—­I guess I can anyway.  And when I’m not half crazy I want it.  Maybe that’s the reason I couldn’t do what I tried to do just now.  It’s natural for a woman to want a child —­especially a woman like me, who hasn’t anybody or anything.”

Ditmar’s state of mind was too complicated to be wholly described.  As the fact had been gradually brought home to him that she had not come as a supplicant, that even in her misery she was free, and he helpless, there revived in him wild memories of her body, of the kisses he had wrung from her—­and yet this physical desire was accompanied by a realization of her personality never before achieved.  And because he had hitherto failed to achieve it, she had escaped him.  This belated, surpassing glimpse of what she essentially was, and the thought of the child their child—­permeating his passion, transformed it into a feeling hitherto unexperienced and unimagined.  He hovered over her, pitifully, his hands feeling for her, yet not daring to touch her.

“Can’t you see that I love you?” he cried, “that I’m ready to marry you now, to-night.  You must love me, I won’t believe that you don’t after —­after all we have been to each other.”

But even then she could not believe.  Something in her, made hard by the intensity of her suffering, refused to melt.  And her head was throbbing, and she scarcely heard him.

“I can’t stay any longer,” she said, getting to her feet.  “I can’t bear it.”

“Janet, I swear I’ll care for you as no woman was ever cared for.  For God’s sake listen to me, give me a chance, forgive me!” He seized her arm; she struggled, gently but persistently, to free herself from his hold.

“Let me go, please.”  All the passionate anger had gone out of her, and she spoke in a monotone, as one under hypnosis, dominated by a resolution which, for the present at least, he was powerless to shake.

“But to-morrow?” he pleaded.  “You’ll let me see you to-morrow, when you’ve had time to think it over, when you realize that I love you and want you, that I haven’t meant to be cruel—­that you’ve misjudged me —­thought I was a different kind of a man.  I don’t blame you for that, I guess something happened to make you believe it.  I’ve got enemies.  For the sake of the child, Janet, if for nothing else, you’ll come back to me!  You’re—­you’re tired tonight, you’re not yourself.  I don’t wonder, after all you’ve been through.  If you’d only come to me before!  God knows what I’ve suffered, too!”