er. I couldn't bear
to leave you, it'll be a whole week before we get another day. Do you
suppose I'd--I'd do anything to insult you, Janet?"

With her fingers still tightened over the door-catch she turned and
looked at him.

"I don't know," she said slowly. "Sometimes I think you would. Why
shouldn't you? Why should you marry me? Why shouldn't you try to do with
me what you've done with other women? I don't know anything about the
world, about life. I'm nobody. Why shouldn't you?"

"Because you're not like the other women--that's why. I love you--won't
you believe it?" He was beside himself with anxiety. "Listen--I'll take
you home if you want to go. You don't know how it hurts me to have you
think such things!"

"Well, then, take me home," she said. It was but gradually that she
became pacified. A struggle was going on within her between these
doubts of him he had stirred up again and other feelings aroused by
his pleadings. Night fell, and when they reached the Silliston road the
lights of Hampton shone below them in the darkness.

"You'd better let me out here," she said. "You can't drive me home."

He brought the car to a halt beside one of the small wooden shelters
built for the convenience of passengers.

"You forgive me--you understand, Janet?" he asked.

"Sometimes I don't know what to think," she said, and suddenly clung to
him. "I--I forgive you. I oughtn't to suspect such things, but I'm like
that. I'm horrid and I can't help it." She began to unbutton the coat he
had bought for her.

"Aren't you going to take it?" he said. "It's yours."

"And what do you suppose my family would say if I told them Mr. Ditmar
had given it to me?"

"Come on, I'll drive you home, I'll tell them I gave it to you, that
we're going to be married," he announced recklessly.

"Oh, no!" she exclaimed in consternation. "You couldn't. You said so
yourself--that you didn't want, any one to know, now. I'll get on the
trolley."

"And the roses?" he asked.

She pressed them to her face, and chose one. "I'll take this," she said,
laying the rest on the seat....

He waited until he saw her safely on the trolley car, and then drove
slowly homeward in a state of amazement. He had been on the verge of
announcing himself to the family in Fillmore Street as her prospective
husband! He tried to imagine what that household was like; and again he
found himself wondering why she had not consented to his proposal. And
the ever-recu