“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.”

Believing, as he did, that marriage was the goal of all women, even of the best, the immediate capitulation he had expected would have made matters far less difficult.  But these scruples of hers, so startlingly his own, her disquieting insight into his entire mental process had a momentary checking effect, summoned up the vague presage of a future that might become extremely troublesome and complicated.  His very reluctance to discuss with her the problem she had raised warned him that he had been swept into deep waters.  On the other hand, her splendid resistance appealed to him, enhanced her value.  And accustomed as he had been to a lifelong self-gratification, the thought of being balked in this supreme desire was not to be borne.  Such were the shades of his feeling as he listened to her.

“That’s nonsense!” he exclaimed, when she had finished.  “You’re a lady —­I know all about your family, I remember hearing about it when your father came here—­it’s as good as any in New England.  What do you suppose I care, Janet?  We love each other—­I’ve got to have you.  We’ll be married in the spring, when the rush is over.”