第94章

"I was simply put where I didn't know what else to do."

Carrie deigned no suggestion of hearing this.

"When I say you wouldn't come unless I could marry you, I decided to put everything else behind me and get you to come away with me.I'm going off now to another city.I want to go to Montreal for a while, and then anywhere you want to.We'll go and live in New York, if you say."

"I'll not have anything to do with you," said Carrie."I want to get off this train.Where are we going?"

"To Detroit," said Hurstwood.

"Oh!" said Carrie, in a burst of anguish.So distant and definite a point seemed to increase the difficulty.

"Won't you come along with me?" he said, as if there was great danger that she would not."You won't need to do anything but travel with me.I'll not trouble you in any way.You can see Montreal and New York, and then if you don't want to stay you can go back.It will be better than trying to go back to-night."

The first gleam of fairness shone in this proposition for Carrie.

It seemed a plausible thing to do, much as she feared his opposition if she tried to carry it out.Montreal and New York!

Even now she was speeding toward those great, strange lands, and could see them if she liked.She thought, but made no sign.

Hurstwood thought he saw a shade of compliance in this.He redoubled his ardour.

"Think," he said, "what I've given up.I can't go back to Chicago any more.I've got to stay away and live alone now, if you don't come with me.You won't go back on me entirely, will you, Carrie?"

"I don't want you to talk to me," she answered forcibly.

Hurstwood kept silent for a while.

Carrie felt the train to be slowing down.It was the moment to act if she was to act at all.She stirred uneasily.

"Don't think of going, Carrie," he said."If you ever cared for me at all, come along and let's start right.I'll do whatever you say.I'll marry you, or I'll let you go back.Give yourself time to think it over.I wouldn't have wanted you to come if I

hadn't loved you.I tell you, Carrie, before God, I can't live without you.I won't!"

There was the tensity of fierceness in the man's plea which appealed deeply to her sympathies.It was a dissolving fire which was actuating him now.He was loving her too intensely to think of giving her up in this, his hour of distress.He clutched her hand nervously and pressed it with all the force of an appeal.

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.