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