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 person who had changed things was that same
fair animal of the town.

And shallow-minded legislatures will enact preposterous social laws for
the regulation of the morals of boys, and imagine they have placed
another paving-stone in the road to the millennium, while the Mrs.
Rolfstons are having a riotous time of it.