Ambrose Bierce states that humans can do the unthinkable when they are experiencing extreme emotions.  He organizes his ideas into a short story about a woman who becomes very angry and distraught when she discovers that her husband has bought a ticket to Chicago and is planning to run away from her, so she takes a gun and kills him.  The reason she killed him was that she loved him so much that she couldn’t bear to see him leave and that was the only way she knew how to keep him with her.  Bierce makes the tone ironic; even though the wife has prevented her husband from running away, she has killed him and will never see him again.  The author portrays the woman’s lack of good judgment in this situation as amusing, using a tone of combined irony and humor.  He considers the questions “what is love, and what does it mean to be a man or woman?”