Carrie deigned no suggestion of hearing this.
"When I saw 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.