prolonged the talk, because the young lawyer without a case aroused his
interest and sympathy. He soon discovered that Lee had an uncommon mind,
acute, penetrating, and on fire with noble ideals. But it was a fire
that smouldered unseen. He had never had a chance; it would come to him
some day, Harley knew, but it might be, it surely would be, too late.
Harley had seen much of the world, its glory and its shame alike, and he
was convinced that nothing else in it was worth so much to man as the
spontaneous love of a pure woman and a happy marriage. He knew from dear
experience how much Lee was losing--nay, had lost already--and his pity
was deeply stirred. He wished to speak of it to Sylvia, but the thought
of such words only made his own wound the deeper. The whole town was on
the side of the lovers, but it was bound and helpless; the father's
command and Lee's own honor were barriers that could not be passed.
The people about Egmont were so much delighted with Mr. Grayson's speech
that they demanded a second from him, and, with his usual good-nature,
he yielded, although Harley knew that he was feeling the strain of such
a long and severe campaign. The evening of the fifth day after his
arrival was set for the time, and he was expected to deliver the address
at a late hour, when he returned from one of the circle of villages.
On the night before the second speech, the candidate and Harley, who
were now staying at the hotel, after making their excuses to the others,
slipped out for a walk in the cool and silence of the dark. The rarest
thing in Jimmy Grayson's life now was privacy, and he longed for it as a
parched throat longs for water; it was only at such times as this, with
a late hour and a favoring night, that he could secure it.
Nearly all Egmont was in bed, and they turned from the chief street into
the residence quarter, where a few lights twinkled amid the lawns and
gardens. No one had noticed them, and Jimmy Grayson, with a sigh of
relief, drew breaths of the crisp, cool air that came across a thousand
miles of clean prairie.
"What a splendid night!" he said. "What a grand horizon!"
They stood upon a slight elevation, and they looked down the street and
out upon the prairie, which rippled away, silver in the moonlight, like
the waves of the sea. A wind, faint, like a happy sigh, was blowing.
"An evening for lovers," said the candidate, and he smiled as his mind
ran back to some happy evenings in his own life. "Now, why should such a
moonlight as this ever be spoiled by a political speech?" he continued.
"I was thinking of lovers myself," said Harley, "because here is the
Anderson house before us. Don't you see its white walls shining through
the trees?"
"Poor girl!" said the candidate. "It is a terrible thing for a woman to
be separated from the man she loves. A woman, I think, can really love
but once. And yet her father's pride is natural; young Lee has not even
made a start in life."
"All he needs is a chance, which he will get--when it is too late," said
Harley.
The house and its grounds, surrounded by a stone wall not more than
three feet high, occupied an entire square in the outskirts of the
little city, and the candidate and Harley followed the least frequented
of the streets--one running beside the stone wall, which was shaded
presently by thick and arching boughs of trees that grew within. As they
entered the shadow they saw a man leap over the low barrier and
disappear in the Anderson grounds.
"A burglar!" exclaimed Harley. His first thought was of Helen Anderson
and her beautiful, appealing face, and without a moment's hesitation he
sprang over the wall to pursue. Jimmy Grayson looked at him in
astonishment, and then followed.
Harley stopped for an instant inside the grounds, and saw the dark
figure just ahead of him, but now walking with such slowness that
pursuit was easy. Evidently the burglar was making sure of the way
before he sought to enter the Anderson mansion; but Harley was
surprised, in a few moments, to notice something familiar in the
shoulders and bearing of the man whom he followed. His burglar never
looked back, but entered an open space; and then Harley, his surprise
increasing, stopped when he saw him approach a little summer-house of
lattice-work. The hand of the candidate fell at that moment upon his
arm, and a deep voice said in his ear:
"I think we have gone far enough, don't you, Harley?"
"I do," replied Harley, with conviction.
A woman was coming, a woman with a beautiful, pale face, more lovely and
sad than ever in the moonlight, and the two men knew at once that Helen
was about to meet her lover. They would have turned and fled from the
grounds, because a woman's pure love was sacred, to be hidden from all
eyes and ears save those of one, but her face was towards them, and had
they stepped from the shadow of the oak she would have seen the two.
"Ah, Helen!" said Lee, as he met her and took her hands in his.
"Arthur, for the last time!" she exclaimed.
"Yes, I know it is for the last time," said Arthur, and there was a
moving sadness in his voice.
Their faces were turned towards the two there in the shadow of the
great oak, although unwitting that others were so near, and neither man
dared to move. The moonlight, in softened silver, fell upon the faces of
the lovers, disclosing all the beauty of the woman's and all the
loftiness of the man's. Harley thought he had never seen a nobler pair.
The man took both the girl's hands in his and held them for a few
moments. Then he walked back and forth, taking quick little steps. Every
motion of his figure expressed agony and despair. The girl stood still,
and her face, clearly shown in the moonlight, was turned towards Harley;
it, too, expressed agony and despair; but her stillness showed
resignation, Lee's fierce movements were full of rebellion.
"I am going away, Helen," said Arthur. "I have decided upon it. I shall
not be here more than a week or two longer. I cannot be in the same
town, seeing you every day and knowing that you cannot be mine. I could
not stand it."
"I suppose it is best," said Helen; "but, Arthur, I love you. I have
told you that, and I am proud of it. I shall never love any one else. It
is not possible."
Her beautiful, pale face was still turned towards Harley, and he saw
again upon it that touch of ineffable sadness and resignation that had
moved him so deeply. Lee stopped his despairing walk back and forth and
looked at Helen. Then he uttered a little cry and seized her hands
again.
"Helen," he said, "I cannot do it! I came here to give you up forever,
to tell you that I was going away, and I meant to go, but I cannot do
it. We love each other--then who has the right to separate us? I thought
that I could stand this, that I had hardened myself to endure it, but
when the time comes I find that it is too much. My right to you is
greater than that of father or mother. Come with me; we can go to
Longford to-night, and in three hours we shall be man and wife."
He still held her hands in his, and his face was flushed and his eyes
shining with an eager but noble passion.
Harley and the candidate, in the shrubbery, never stirred. They
listened, but they forgot that they were listening.
The girl lifted her eyes to those of her lover, and there was in them no
reproach, only a high, sad courage.
"You do not mean what you say now, Arthur," she said. "I have given my
promise to my father, and you must help me to be strong, for alone I am
weak, very weak. None can help me but you. You must go, as you said you
would go, but your face shall always be with me here. Though I may not
be your wife, I shall be true to you all my life."
"In such moments as these the woman is always stronger than the man,"
breathed Jimmy Grayson.
Lee dropped her hands again and walked a step or two away.
"Helen," he said, "forgive me, and forget what I said. I was base when I
spoke. But I have found it too hard!--too hard!"
Her eyes still expressed no reproach; there was in them something almost
divine. She loved him the more because of his weakness, although she
would not yield to it.
"It is hard, very hard for us both," she whispered, "but it must be
done. But, Arthur, I love you. I have told you that, and I am not
ashamed of it. I shall never love any one else. It is not possible."
"I know it. I know, too, that your heart will always be mine, but, as
the world sees it, your father is right. I am nothing. I have no right
to a wife--above all, to one such as you. I feel that I have a power
within me, the power to do things which the world would call good, but
there is no chance. I suppose that the chance will come some day--when
it is too late."
Harley started. The words were the echo of his own. "We must go," he
whispered to the candidate. "No one has a right to listen, even without
intention, at this, their last meeting." Jimmy Grayson had already
turned away, and by the faint moonlight sifting through the branches
Harley saw a mist in his eyes. But their movement made a sound, and the
lovers looked up.
"Did you hear a noise? What was it?" asked Helen.
"Only a lizard in the grass or a squirrel rattling the bark of a tree,"
replied Arthur.
They listened a moment, but they heard nothing more, save the faint
stirring of the wind among the leaves and the grass.
"Are you really going, Arthur?" asked Helen, as if, approving it once,
she would like now to hear him deny it.
He looked at her, his face flushing and his eyes alight, as if at last
he heard her ask him to stay; but he saw in her gaze only brave resolve.
She could love him, and yet she had the strength to sacrifice that love
for what she considered her duty. He drew courage from her, and he
lifted his head proudly, although his eyes expressed grief alone.
"Yes, I have only to start," he replied; "you know I have little to
take. I make just one more public appearance in Egmont. Mr. Grayson
speaks here again to-morrow night, and the committee, by some chance--a
chance it must have been--has put me on the list of speakers."
"Oh, Arthur, it may be an opportunity for you!"
She was eager, flushed, her eyes flaming and uplifted to his.
"It might be, Helen, at any other time, but this is evil fortune. I am
of the other party; I must speak against him--we are fair to both sides
here; he will have the right of rejoinder, and you know what he is,
Helen--the greatest orator in America, perhaps in all the world. No one
yet has ever been able to defeat him, and what chance have I, with no
experience, against the most formidable debater in existence? I should
shirk it, Helen, if the people would not think me a coward."
"Oh, Arthur, what an ordeal!" She looked up at him with wet, tender
eyes.
Harley, at the mention of Jimmy Grayson's name, glanced away from the
lovers and towards the candidate. He saw him start, and a singular, soft
expression pass over his face, to be followed by one of doubt.
"Now I shall go, Helen," said Arthur. "It was wrong of me to ask you to
meet me here, but I could not go away without seeing you alone and
speaking to you alone, as I do now."
"I was glad to come."
He took her hands again, and for a few moments they stood, gazing into
each other's eyes, where they saw all the grief of a last parting.
Harley wished to turn his gaze away, but, somehow, he could not. There
was silence in the grounds, save that gentle, sighing sound of the wind
through the leaves and grass, and only the moon looked down.
Suddenly the youth bent his head, kissed the girl on the lips, and then
ran swiftly through the shrubbery, as if he could not bear to hesitate
or look back.
"It was their first kiss," murmured Harley.
"I did not see it," said Jimmy Grayson, turning his eyes away.
"And their last," murmured Harley.
The girl stood like a statue, still deadly pale, but Harley saw that her
eyes were luminous. It was the man whom she loved who had taken her
first kiss; nothing could alter that beautiful fact. She listened, as if
she could hear his last retreating footstep on the grass dying away like
an echo. Harley and the candidate watched her until her slender figure
in the white draperies was hid by the house, and then they, too, went
back to the street.
Neither spoke until they passed the low stone wall, and then the
candidate said, brusquely:
"Harley, unless this moonlight deceives me, there is moisture on your
eyelids. What do you mean by such unmanly weakness?"
Harley smiled, but, refraining from the _tu quoque_, left Jimmy Grayson
to lead the way, and he noticed that he chose a course that did not take
them back to the hotel. Moreover, he did not speak again for a long
time, and Harley walked on by his side, silent, too, but thoughtful and
keenly observant. He saw that his friend was troubled, and he divined
the great struggle that was going on in his mind. Whether he could do it
if he were in the place of the candidate he was unable to say, and he
was glad that the decision did not lie with himself.
They walked on and on until they left the town and were out upon the
broad prairie, where the wind moaned in a louder key, and the
candidate's face was still troubled.
"Harley," said the candidate, at last, "I cannot get rid of the look in
that girl's eyes."
"I do not wish to do so," said Harley.
It was nearly midnight when he turned and began to walk back towards the
town. The moonlight, breaking through a cloud, again flooded Jimmy
Grayson's face, and Harley, who knew him so well, saw that the look of
trouble had passed. The lips were compressed and firm, and in his eyes
shone the clear light of decision. Harley's feelings, as he saw, were
mingled, a strange compound of elation and apprehension. But at the
hotel he said, gravely, "Good-night," and the candidate replied with
equal seriousness, "Good-night." Neither referred to what they had seen
nor to what they expected.
The second speech at Egmont drew an even greater audience than the
first, as the fame of Jimmy Grayson's powers spread fast, and there
would be, too, the added spice of combat; members of the other party
would accept his challenge, replying to his logic if they could, and the
hall was crowded early with eager people. Harley, sitting at the back of
the stage, saw the Honorable John Anderson come in, importantly, his
wife under one arm and his daughter under the other. Helen looked paler
than ever, but here under the electric lights her sad loveliness made
the same appeal to Harley. Lee arrived late, and although, as one of the
speakers, he was forced to sit on the stage, he hid himself behind the
others. But a single glance passed between the two, and then the girl
sat silent and pale, hoping against hope for her lover.
The candidate spoke well. His voice was as deep and as musical as ever,
and his sentences rolled as smoothly as before. All his charm and
magnetism of manner were present; the old spell which he threw over
everybody--a spell which was from the heart and the manner as well as
from the meaning of his words--was not lacking, but to Harley, keenly
attentive, there seemed to be a flaw in his logic. The reasoning was not
as clear and compact as usual. Only a man with a penetrating, analytical
mind would observe it, but there were openings here and there where his
armor could be pierced. Blaisdell, one of the correspondents, noticed
the fact, and he whispered to Harley:
"It's a good thing that Jimmy Grayson has no great speaker against him
to-night; I never knew him to wander from the point before."
"Where's your great speaker?" asked Harley, with irony.
But the crowded audience was oblivious. It heard only the music of the
candidate's voice and felt only the spell of his manner; therefore, it
was with a sort of contempt that it looked upon Lee, the young lawyer
without a case, who rose to reply. Lee was pale, but there was a fire in
his eyes, as if he, too, had noticed something, and Harley, observing,
caught his breath sharply.
The correspondent again looked down at the girl, and he saw a deep flush
sweep over her face, and then, passing, leave it deadly pale. The next
moment she averted her eyes as if she would not see the failure of her
lover, not the less dear to her because he was about to go away forever.
But though he did not see her face now, Harley, as he looked at the bent
head, could read her mind. He knew that she was quivering; he knew that
she, too, had been completely under the spell of the candidate's great
voice and manner, and she feared the painful contrast.
Harley glanced once at Jimmy Grayson, sitting quietly, all expression
dismissed from his face, and then he looked back at the girl; she should
receive all his attention now. Presently he saw her raise her head, the
color returned to her face, and a sudden look of wonder and hope
appeared in her eyes. Arthur was speaking, not timidly, not like one
beaten, but in a strong, clear voice, and with a logic that was keen and
merciless he drove straight at the weak points in the candidate's
address. Even Harley was surprised at his skill and penetration.
The correspondent watched Helen, and he read every step of her lover's
progress in her eyes. The wonder and hope there grew, and the hope
turned to delight. She looked up at her father, as if to tell him how
much he had misjudged Arthur, and that here, in truth, was the beginning
of greatness; and the important man, as he felt her eyes upon him, moved
uneasily in his seat.
The feelings of the audience were mingled, but among them amazement led
all the rest. The great Jimmy Grayson, the Presidential nominee, the
unconquerable, the man of world-wide fame, the victor of every campaign,
was being beaten by a young townsman of their own, not known twenty
miles from home. Incredible as it seemed, it was true; the fact was
patent to the dullest in the hall. Harley saw a look of astonishment and
then dismay overspread the faces of Mrs. Grayson and Sylvia, and he knew
that of all in the hall they were suffering most acutely.
The keen, cutting voice went on, tearing Jimmy Grayson's argument to
pieces, clipping off a section here and a section there, and tossing
the fragments aside. By-and-by the amazement of the people gave way to
delight. Their home pride was touched. This boy of their own was doing
what no other had ever been able to do. They began to thunder forth
applause, and the women waved their handkerchiefs. Hobart leaned over
and whispered to Harley:
"Old man, what does this mean? Is Jimmy Grayson sick?"
"He was never better than he is to-night."
Hobart gave him an inquiring look.
"I'll ask more about this later," he said.
But Harley already had turned his attention back to Helen, and as he
watched the growing joy on her face his own heart responded. It was
relief, elation, that he felt now, and, for the moment, no apprehension.
He saw the color yet flushing her cheeks, and the eyes alight with life
and joy. He saw her suddenly clasp her father's arm in both hands, and,
though he was too far away to hear, he knew well that she was telling
him what a great man Arthur was going to be. For her all obstacles were
driven away by this sudden flood of fortune, and Harley again saw the
important man move uneasily while a look, half fear, half shame, came
into his eyes.
The speech was finished, and young Lee, a man now on a pedestal, sat
down amid thunders of applause. Jimmy Grayson undertook to respond, but
for the first time in his life he was weak and halting. He wandered on
lamely, and at last retired amid faint cheers, to be followed quickly by
an astonished silence. Then, when the people recovered themselves, they
poured in a tumult from the hall; but the hero to whom they turned
admiringly was Arthur Lee, their own youthful townsman, and not the
candidate.
The next day Hobart told Harley that Lee had won everything. Mr.
Anderson, sharing the pride of Egmont, could resist no longer, and had
withdrawn his refusal. Arthur and Helen would be married in the winter.
"You see," said Hobart, "young Lee is now a hero."
"But not the greatest hero," said Harley.
"That is true," said Hobart, and then he added, after a moment's pause,
"I could never have done it."
But that night, when Jimmy Grayson left the hall, he went at once to the
hotel with Mrs. Grayson. Luckily there was a side-door, out of which
they slipped so quietly and quickly that not many people had a chance
either to pity him or to exult over him, at least in his presence. Yet
he did not fail to notice more than one sneer on the faces of those who
belonged to the other party, and his cheeks burned for a moment, as
James Grayson, the candidate, had his full store of human pride.
In the hall the amazed crowd lingered, and the correspondents, not less
surprised than the people, gathered in a group to talk it over. Sylvia
was there, too, and she was almost in tears. To none had the blow been
harder than to her, and she was so stunned that she could yet scarcely
credit it. All of the group were sad except Churchill, who felt all the
glory of an I-told-you-so come to judgment.
"It was bound to happen, sooner or later," he said, when he noticed that
Sylvia was not listening; "the man is all froth and foam, but who could
have thought that the bubble would be pricked by an obscure little
Western attorney? Was ever anything more ignominious?"
Then the ancient beau, Tremaine, spoke from a soul that was stirred to
the depths.
"Churchill," he exclaimed, "I've been travelling about the world forty
years, but there are times when I think you are the meanest man I ever
met."
Churchill flushed and clinched his fist, but thought better of it, and
turned off the matter with an uneasy laugh.
"Tremaine," he said, "the older you grow the fonder you become of
superlatives."
"I admired Jimmy Grayson in his triumphs, and I admire him more than
ever in his defeat," said Tremaine, still bristling, and fiercely
twisting his short, gray mustache.
"Mr. Tremaine, I want to thank you," said Sylvia, who, turning to them,
had heard Tremaine's warm speech; and she put her hand in his for a
moment, which was to him ample repayment.
Harley stood by, and was silent because he did not know what to say. To
state that Mr. Grayson had allowed himself to be beaten for a purpose
would have an incredible look in print--it would seem the poorest of
excuses; nor did he wish to make use of it in the presence of Churchill,
who would certainly jeer at it and present it in his despatches as a
ridiculous plea. He had begun to have a certain sensitiveness in regard
to the candidate, and he did not wish to be forced into a quarrel with
Churchill.
But Sylvia caught a slight smile, a smile of irony, in the eyes of
Harley, and the tears in her own dried up at once. She felt
instinctively, with all the quickness of a woman's intuition, that
Harley knew something about the speech which she did not know, but she
meant to know it, and she watched for an opportunity.
They were turning out the lights in the hall and the people began to go
away, the correspondents closing up the rear. Sylvia fell back with
Harley, and touched his arm lightly.
"There is something that you are not telling me," she said.
"I am willing to tell it to you, because you will believe it."
Tremaine, with ever-ready gallantry, was about to join them, but Sylvia
said:
"I thank you, Mr. Tremaine, but Mr. Harley has promised to see me to the
hotel."
Her tone was light, but so decisive that Tremaine turned back at once,
and Hobart, who was ahead, hid a smile.
"Now, I want to know what it is," she said, eagerly, to Harley. "That
was a good speaker, an able man, but I don't believe that he or anybody
else could beat Uncle James. How did it happen?"
Harley did not answer her at once, because it seemed to him just then
that the action of Jimmy Grayson was an illustration, and the idea was
hot in his mind.
"Perhaps there is nothing to tell, after all," she said, and her face
fell.
"There is something to tell; I hesitated because I was looking for the
best way to tell it. Mr. Grayson to-night made a sacrifice of himself,
purposely and willingly."
"A sacrifice of himself! How could he have done such a thing?"
"For the best reason that makes a man do such a thing. For love."
She stared at him a moment, and then broke into a puzzled but ironic
laugh.
"You are certainly dreaming a romance. Uncle James and Aunt Anna have
been happily married for years, and there is nothing now that could
force him to make such a sacrifice."
Harley smiled, and his smile was rarely tender, because he was thinking
at that moment of Sylvia.
"The sacrifice was not to help his own cause, but the cause of another,
the cause of the man who beat him--that is, seemed to beat him. Mr. Lee,
through his victory to-night, wins the girl whom he loves, and he could
have won her in no other way. There are people who can do great deeds
and make great sacrifices for love, even to help the love of two others.
It will be printed in every paper of the United States in the morning
that Mr. Grayson was defeated in debate to-night by a young local
lawyer. His prestige will be greatly impaired."
Her eyes glowed, and her face, too, became rarely tender.
"Uncle James was truly great to-night!" she exclaimed.