ntially 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!"

"Let me go, please," she repeated, and this time, despairingly, he obeyed
her, a conviction of her incommunicability overwhelming him. He turned
and, fumbling with the key, unlocked the door and opened it. "I'll see
you to-morrow," he faltered once more, and watched her as she went
through the darkened outer room until she gained the lighted hallway
beyond and disappeared. Her footsteps died away into silence. He was
trembling. For several minutes he stood where she had left him, tortured
by a sense of his inability to act, to cope with this, the great crisis
of his life, when suddenly the real significance of that strange last
look in her eyes was borne home to him. And he had allowed her to go out
into the streets alone! Seizing his hat and coat, he fa