I think she knew how I felt. Perhaps she had been thinking of me as I
had been thinking of her. A doubtful hesitating smile played about the
corners of her mouth. She had on a dress made of cheap cloth, and there
was a tear on the shoulder. She must have been ten years older than
myself. When I tried to put my pennies on the glass counter behind which
she stood my hand trembled so that the pennies made a sharp rattling
noise. When I spoke the voice that came out of my throat did not sound
like anything that had ever belonged to me. It barely arose above a
thick whisper. 'I want you,' I said. 'I want you very much. Can't you
run away from your husband? Come to me at my apartment at seven
to-night.'

"The woman did come to my apartment at seven. That morning she did not
say anything at all. For a minute perhaps we stood looking at each
other. I had forgotten everything in the world but just her. Then she
nodded her head and I went away. Now that I think of it I cannot
remember a word I ever heard her say. She came to my apartment at seven
and it was dark. You must understand this was in the month of October. I
had not lighted a light and I had sent my servant away.

"During that day I was no good at all. Several men came to see me at my
office, but I got all muddled up in trying to talk with them. They
attributed my rattle-headedness to my approaching marriage and went away
laughing.

"It was on that morning, just the day before my marriage, that I got a
long and very beautiful letter from my fiancA(C)e. During the night before
she also had been unable to sleep and had got out of bed to write the
letter. Everything she said in it was very sharp and real, but she
herself, as a living thing, seemed to have receded into the distance. It
seemed to me that she was like a bird, flying far away in distant skies,
and I was like a perplexed bare-footed boy standing in the dusty road
before a farm house and looking at her receding figure. I wonder if you
will understand what I mean?

"In regard to the letter. In it she, the awakening woman, poured out her
heart. She of course knew nothing of life, but she was a woman. She lay,
I suppose, in her bed feeling nervous and wrought up as I had been
doing. She realized that a great change was about to take place in her
life and was glad and afraid too. There she lay thinking of it all. Then
she got out of bed and began talking to me on the bit of paper. She told
me how afraid she wa