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PinkMonkey Digital Library-Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser


The progress of the train was having a great deal to do with the
solution of this difficult situation. The speeding wheels and
disappearing country put Chicago farther and farther behind.
Carrie could feel that she was being borne a long distance off-that
the engine was making an almost through run to some distant city.
She felt at times as if she could cry out and make such a row that
some one would come to her aid; at other times it seemed an
almost useless thing-so far was she from any aid, no matter what
she did. All the while Hurstwood was endeavouring to formulate
his plea in such a way that it would strike home and bring her into
sympathy with him.

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

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 ar-dour.

"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.
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PinkMonkey Digital Library-Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser



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