ey had trembled in the morning when her
eyes looked at me and when I tried to put the pennies on the counter in
the store. When I opened the door she stepped quickly in and I took her
into my arms. We stood together in the darkness. My hands no longer
trembled. I felt very happy and strong.

"Although I have tried to make everything clear I have not told you what
the woman I married is like. I have emphasized, you see, the other
woman. I make the blind statement that I love my wife, and to a man of
your shrewdness that means nothing at all. To tell the truth, had I not
started to speak of this matter I would feel more comfortable. It is
inevitable that I give you the impression that I am in love with the
tobacconist's wife. That's not true. To be sure I was very conscious of
her all during the week before my marriage, but after she had come to me
at my apartment she went entirely out of my mind.

"Am I telling the truth? I am trying very hard to tell what happened to
me. I am saying that I have not since that evening thought of the woman
who came to my apartment. Now, to tell the facts of the case, that is
not true. On that evening I went to my fiancA(C)e at nine, as she had asked
me to do in her letter. In a kind of way I cannot explain the other
woman went with me. This is what I mean--you see I had been thinking
that if anything happened between me and the tobacconist's wife I would
not be able to go through with my marriage. 'It is one thing or the
other with me,' I had said to myself.

"As a matter of fact I went to see my beloved on that evening filled
with a new faith in the outcome of our life together. I am afraid I
muddle this matter in trying to tell it. A moment ago I said the other
woman, the tobacconist's wife, went with me. I do not mean she went in
fact. What I am trying to say is that something of her faith in her own
desires and her courage in seeing things through went with me. Is that
clear to you? When I got to my fiancA(C)e's house there was a crowd of
people standing about. Some were relatives from distant places I had not
seen before. She looked up quickly when I came into the room. My face
must have been radiant. I never saw her so moved. She thought her letter
had affected me deeply, and of course it had. Up she jumped and ran to
meet me. She was like a glad child. Right before the people who turned
and looked inquiringly at us, she said the thing that was in her mind.
'O, I am so happy,' she