half past nine
-- will you love me always -- always ? '' And he answered hoarsely , `` Yes -- always -- I swear it , Janet . '' He had found her lips again , he was pulling her toward a door on the far side of the room , and suddenly , as he opened it , her resistance ceased ... . The snow made automobiling impossible , and at half past nine that evening Ditmar had escorted Janet to the station in a cab , and she had taken the train for Hampton . For a while she sat as in a trance . She knew that something had happened , something portentous , cataclysmic , which had irrevocably changed her from the Janet Bumpus who had left Hampton that same morning -- an age ago . But she was unable to realize the metamorphosis .