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.