at an insolent hand had been thrust into her pocket and had drawn
out the letter. She could not give herself as a prize. Within the
workshop was heard a shoemaker's hammer. Did no one hear how it
hammered in triumph? She had heard that hammering and had been
vexed by it the whole day. But none of the women understood it.
Omniscient God, hast Thou no servant who could read hearts? She
would gladly accept her sentence, if only she did not need to
confess. She wished to hear some one say: "Who has given you the
idea to lie before God?" She listened for the sound of the young
men's footsteps in order to fall down and die.

***

Several years after this a divorced woman was married to a
shoemaker, who had been apprentice to her husband. She had not
wished it, but had been drawn to it, as a pickerel is drawn to the
side of a boat when it has been caught on the line. The fisherman
lets it play. He lets it rush here and there. He lets it believe it
is free. But when it is tired out, when it can do no more, then he
drags with a light pull, then he lifts it up and jerks it down into
the bottom of the boat before it knows what it is all about.

The wife of the absconded shoemaker had dismissed her apprentice
and wished to live alone. She had wished to show her husband that
she was innocent. But where was her husband? Did he not care for
her faithfulness. She suffered want. Her child went in rags. How
long did her husband think that she could wait? She was unhappy
when she had no one upon whom she could depend.

Erikson succeeded. He had a shop in the town. His shoes stood on
glass shelves behind broad plate-glass windows. His workshop grew.
He hired an apartment and put plush furniture in the parlor.
Everything waited only for her. When she was too wearied of
poverty, she came.

She was very much afraid in the beginning. But no misfortunes
befell her. She became more confident as time went on and more
happy. She had people's regard, and knew within herself that she
had not deserved it. That kept her conscience awake, so that she
became a good woman.

Her first husband, after some years, came back to the house in the
suburbs. It was still his, and he settled down again there and
wished to begin work. But he got no work, nor would anybody have
anything to do with him. He was despised, while his wife enjoyed
great honor. It was nevertheless he who had done right, and she who
had done wrong.

The husband kept his secret, bu