hen in a tone of demand:
"Tell me this: Are you going to marry her?"

Harlson hesitated. "I don't know."

"You do know! You know you haven't any idea of such a thing. You are
just amusing yourself until you get your cursed fence built."

"What is that to you?"

"To me! She was engaged to be married to me, and we were happy
together until you came; and you've come, broken up two lives and done
no one any good, not even yourself, you hungry wolf! She cares more
for me to-day than she does for you. She is better suited to me! But
with your trick of words and your ways you tickled her fancy at first,
and, finally, you charmed her somehow as they say snakes do birds. And
she'll not be fit for anybody when you go away!" The big man sobbed
like a baby.

Harlson made no immediate reply. Was not what Woodell was saying but
the truth? Did he really care for Jenny or she for him? What had it
been but pastime? He could give her up. It would be a little hard, of
course. It is always so when a man has to surrender those close
relations with a woman which are so fascinating, and which come only
when there has been established that sympathy between them which, if
not love, is involuntarily considered by each something that way.
There was a struggle in his mind between the instinct to be honorable
and straight-forward and fair, and to do what was right, and the
impulse, on the other hand, to refuse anything demanded by an
assailant. But the would-be murderer was not a murderer, after all.
He was only a temporary lunatic whom Harlson himself had driven mad.
That was the just way to look at it. As for Jenny, she would not
suffer much. There had not been time enough. Not in a day does a man
or woman have that effect produced upon the heart which lasts forever.
So, were he to disappear from the affair, nothing very serious, nothing
affecting materially the whole of any life would follow. The odds were
against him, or rather against the worst side of him, in the reflection.

He acted promptly. "I don't know about it," he said; "I'm puzzled. I
don't care much. I don't know just where I stand, anyhow. I want to
be decent, but it seems to me I have some rights; I'm all tangled up.
I don't think you imagine I am afraid--I wasn't when I was a little boy
in school with you as a bigger one. You know that--and I'm not now.
But that doesn't count. I've been studying over a lot of things, and I
don't know what to do.