Jimmy changes his ways after he falls in love with Annabel, and it seems that his love for her is sincere. Identify and explain a specific example from the text to illustrate this change in behavior.

In "A Retrieved Reformation," Jimmy Valentine, the talented young safecracker, appears to have genuinely changed his criminal ways when he falls in love with Annabel Adams, the daughter of a prominent small-town banker.
The first explicit sentence in the story to show Jimmy's desire to transform into a normal citizen is the following:

Jimmy Valentine looked into her eyes, forgot what he was, and became another man.

This sentence is a clever literary technique in setting up the story of how Jimmy Valentine will transform into another man. Moments after seeing Annabel, Jimmy checks into a hotel using the name "Ralph D. Spencer" and thus initiates his change of identity.
Here is another passage from the story that illustrates his transformation:

Mr. Ralph Spencer, the phoenix that arose from Jimmy Valentine's ashes—ashes left by the flame of a sudden and alterative attack of love—remained in Elmore, and prospered. He opened a shoe-store and secured a good run of trade.

The passage poetically articulates how Jimmy sheds his old life as a criminal—illustrated by the pile of ashes—and then rises like a phoenix, reborn. However, the passage also shows how he prospers in his new identity as Ralph Spencer. Both transformations were due to an "alterative attack of love."