ittle over twenty--and he slept
like a lamb. And next evening he went over to Woodell's home and said
he wanted some supper, and after the meal laughed at Woodell, and said
he was going off to another farm to pitch quoits until it got too dark,
and the two young men walked down the road together and exchanged some
confidences, and when they parted each was on good terms with the
other. This was strange, following an attempted murder, but such
things happen in real life. And it may be that Woodell had the worst
of the bargain in that conversation.

He was better equipped for the winning of Jenny, but the troubled man
with whom he had been talking had reached out blindly for aid in
another direction. Not much satisfaction was the result. Woodell was
of the kind who, if religious at all, believe without much reasoning,
but Harlson had repeated to him the reasoning of the Hindoo skeptic.
Woodell had at least intelligence enough to follow the line of thought,
and, in after time, when he was a family man and deacon, the lines
would recur to vex him sorely.

And Jenny did not pine away and die because she saw little more of
Harlson. He met her and explained briefly that they had been doing
wrong, and that he and Woodell had talked. She turned pale, then red,
but said little. Of the struggle in the night Jenny never learned.
She inferred, of course, that her lover had gone in a straightforward
way to Harlson, and that his demands had been acceded to. She was
gratified, perhaps, that she had become a person of much importance.
She thought more of Woodell and less of Harlson, because of the issue
of the debate, as she understood it, and, when the first pique and
passion were over, became resigned enough to the outlook. She had been
on the verge of sin, but she was not the only woman in the world to
carry a secret. Woodell's pleadings were met with yielding, and the
wedding occurred within a month. Perhaps she made a better wife
because her husband did not know the truth in detail, and she felt the
burden of a debt, but that is doubtful. Though fair of feature, she
was not deep enough of mind to even brood. Of course, too, by this
standard should be lessened the real degree of all erring. Harlson,
wiser, was much the more guilty of the two and deserved some
punishment, but, as an equation, it could, at least, since he was
young, be said in his defense that as he was to Jenny so had Mrs.
Rolfston been to him. The