The train was now all but stopped.  It was running by some cars on a side track.  Everything outside was dark and dreary.  A few sprinkles on the window began to indicate that it was raining.  Carrie hung in a quandary, balancing between decision and helplessness.  Now the train stopped, and she was listening to his plea.  The engine backed a few feet and all was still.

She wavered, totally unable to make a move.  Minute after minute slipped by and still she hesitated, he pleading.

“Will you let me come back if I want to?” she asked, as if she now had the upper hand and her companion was utterly subdued.

“Of course,” he answered, “you know I will.”

Carrie only listened as one who has granted a temporary amnesty.  She began to feel as if the matter were in her hands entirely.

The train was again in rapid motion.  Hurstwood changed the subject.

“Aren’t you very tired?” he said.

“No,” she answered.

“Won’t you let me get you a berth in the sleeper?”

She shook her head, though for all her distress and his trickery she was beginning to notice what she had always felt—­his thoughtfulness.

“Oh, yes,” he said, “you will feel so much better.”

She shook her head.

“Let me fix my coat for you, anyway,” and he arose and arranged his light coat in a comfortable position to receive her head.

“There,” he said tenderly, “now see if you can’t rest a little.”  He could have kissed her for her compliance.  He took his seat beside her and thought a moment.

“I believe we’re in for a heavy rain,” he said.

“So it looks,” said Carrie, whose nerves were quieting under the sound of the rain drops, driven by a gusty wind, as the train swept on frantically through the shadow to a newer world.

The fact that he had in a measure mollified Carrie was a source of satisfaction to Hurstwood, but it furnished only the most temporary relief.  Now that her opposition was out of the way, he had all of his time to devote to the consideration of his own error.

His condition was bitter in the extreme, for he did not want the miserable sum he had stolen.  He did not want to be a thief.  That sum or any other could never compensate for the state which he had thus foolishly doffed.  It could not give him back his host of friends, his name, his house and family, nor Carrie, as he had meant to have her.  He was shut out from Chicago—­from his easy, comfortable state.  He had robbed himself of his dignity, his merry meetings, his pleasant evenings.  And for what?  The more he thought of it the more unbearable it became.  He began to think that he would try and restore himself to his old state.  He would return the miserable thievings of the night and explain.  Perhaps Moy would understand.  Perhaps they would forgive him and let him come back.