half
expecting her to flee, and stopped.

"Listen!" he pleaded. "I can't talk to you here. Won't you give me a
chance to explain--to put myself right? You know what I think of you, how
I respect and--admire you. If you'll only let me see you somewhere
--anywhere, outside of the office, for a little while, I can't tell you
how much I'd appreciate it. I'm sure you don't understand how I feel--I
couldn't bear to lose you. I'll be down by the canal--near the bridge
--at eight o'clock to-night. I'll wait for you. You'll come? Say you'll
come, and give me another chance!"

"Aren't you going to finish your letters?" she asked.

He stared at her in sheer perplexity. "Letters!" he exclaimed. "Damn the
letters! Do you think I could write any letters now?"

As a faint ray in dark waters, a gleam seemed to dance in the shadows of
her eyes, yet was gone so swiftly that he could not be sure of having
seen it. Had she smiled?

"I'll be there," he cried. "I'll wait for you."

She turned from him, opened the door, and went out.

That evening, as Janet was wiping the dishes handed her by her mother,
she was repeating to herself "Shall I go--or shan't I?"--just as if the
matter were in doubt. But in her heart she was convinced of its
predetermination by some power other than her own volition. With this
feeling, that she really had no choice, that she was being guided and
impelled, she went to her bedroom after finishing her task. The hands of
the old dining-room clock pointed to quarter of eight, and Lise had
already made her toilet and departed. Janet opened the wardrobe, looked
at the new blue suit hanging so neatly on its wire holder, hesitated, and
closed the door again. Here, at any rate, seemed a choice. She would not
wear that, to-night. She tidied her hair, put on her hat and coat, and
went out; but once in the street she did not hurry, though she knew the
calmness she apparently experienced to be false: the calmness of
fatality, because she was obeying a complicated impulse stronger than
herself--an impulse that at times seemed mere curiosity. Somewhere,
removed from her immediate consciousness, a storm was raging; she was
aware of a disturbance that reached her faintly, like the distant
throbbing of the looms she heard when she turned from Faber into West
Street She had not been able to eat any supper. That throbbing of the
looms in the night! As it grew louder and louder the tension within her
increased, broke its boun