"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."