Part 22

Sylvia said nothing about Mr. Plummer; if she knew whether he would return and when, she kept it to herself, and Mrs. Grayson, who was waiting in anxiety for an answer to her letter--an answer that did not come--was in a state of apprehension, which she hid, however, from all except Mr. Grayson. This agitation was increased by an event in her husband's career, so unexpected in its nature and so extraordinary that it was the sensation of the country, and exercised an unfavorable influence upon the campaign. If any one in the United States, whether friend or enemy, had been asked if such a thing could occur, he would have said that it was impossible.

In their travels they came presently to Egmont, a snug town, lying in a hollow of the land, from which they were going to conduct what Hobart called a circular campaign--that is, it was the centre from which they were to make journeys to a ring of smaller places lying in a circle about it, returning late at night for sleep and rest.

They were all pleased with Egmont; though less than ten years old, it had houses of brick and stone, a trim look, and the smoothness of life and comfort that usually come only with age. It was a pleasure to return to it every night from the newer and cruder villages in the outer ring, and enjoy good beds and fresh sheets.

But the candidate spoke first in Egmont, and the chairman of the committee that managed the meeting was the solid man of the town. Harley and his comrades required no information on this point; it was visible at once in the important manner of the Honorable John Anderson, the cool way in which he assumed authority, and his slight air of patronage when he came in contact with the correspondents. Harley and his comrades only laughed; they had often noticed the same bearing in men much better known in the world than the Honorable John Anderson, of Egmont, Montana, and they generally set it down as one of the faults of success; therefore they could smile.

But Mr. Anderson was hospitable, insisting that the candidate and his family, instead of spending the first night at the hotel, should go with him to his house. "I have room and to spare," he said, with a slight touch of importance. "My house will be honored if it can shelter to-night the next President of the United States."

"Thank you for the invitation," said Jimmy Grayson, gravely. "I shall be glad to join you with my family and Mr. Harley. Mr. Harley has become in a sense one of my advisers, almost a lieutenant, I might say."

Mr. Anderson was not intending to ask Harley, as the correspondent knew, but the candidate had included him so deftly that the important citizen must do so, too, and he widened the invitation with courtesy. Harley, always in search of new types, always anxious to explore the secrets of new lands, accepted as promptly as if the request had been spontaneous.

Although his house was only a few hundred yards away, Mr. Anderson took them there in his two-seated, highly polished carriage, drawn by a pair of seal-brown trotters. "Good horses," he said, as he cracked his whip contentedly over them. "I brought them all the way from Kentucky. Cost me a lot, too."

The Anderson house was really fine, built of light stone, standing far back on a wide lawn, and Harley could see that the good taste of some one had presided at its birth. It had an Eastern air of quiet and completion. When Mr. Anderson, glancing at his guests, beheld the look of approval on their faces, he was pleased, and said, in an easy, off-hand manner:

"Been up only four years; planned it myself, with a little help from wife and daughter."

Harley at once surmised that the good effect was due to the taste of the wife or daughter, or both, and he was confirmed in the opinion when he met Mrs. Anderson, a slight, modest woman, superior to her husband in some respects that Harley thought important. The daughter did not appear until just before dinner, but when she came into the parlor to meet the guest the correspondent held his breath for a moment.

Rare and beautiful flowers bloom now and then on the cold plains of the great Northwest, and Harley said in his heart that Helen Anderson was one of the rarest and most beautiful of them all. It was not alone the beauty of face and figure, but it was, even more, the nobility of expression and a singular touch of pathos, as if neither youth nor beauty had kept from her a great sadness. This almost hidden note of sorrow seemed to Harley to make perfect her grace and charm, and he felt, stranger though he was, that he was willing to sacrifice himself to protect her from some blow unknown to him. Speaking of it afterwards, he found that she had the same effect upon the candidate. "I felt that I must be her champion," said Mr. Grayson. "Why, I did not know, but I wanted to fight for her."

Miss Anderson herself was unconscious of the impression that she created, and she strove only to entertain her father's guests, a task in which she achieved the full measure of success. Mr. Anderson mentioned, casually, how he had sent her to Wellesley, and Harley saw that her horizon was wider than that of her parents. But the pathetic, appealing look came now and then into her beautiful eyes, and Harley was convinced of her unhappiness. Once he saw a sudden glance, as of sympathy and understanding, pass between her and Sylvia.

It was not long before the secret of Helen Anderson was told to him, because it was no secret at all. The whole town was proud of her, and everybody in it knew that she was in love with Arthur Lee, the young lawyer whose sign hung on the main street of Egmont before an office which was yet unvisited by clients. It was true love on both sides, they said, with sympathy; they had been boy and girl together, and during her long stay in the East at school she had never forgotten him. But Mr. Anderson would have none of the briefless youth; his prosperity had fed his pride--a lawyer without a case was not a fit match for his daughter. "If you were famous, if it were common talk that some day you might be governor or United States senator, I might consent, but, sir, you have done nothing," he had said, with cruel sarcasm to Lee.

It was a bitter truth, and Lee himself, high and honorable in all his nature, saw it. The girl, too, had old-fashioned ideas of duty to parents, and when her father bade her think no more of Lee she humbly bowed her head. But the town said, and the town knew, that the more she sought to put him out of her heart, the more strongly intrenched was he there; that while she now tried to think of him not at all, she thought of him all the time.

The whole story was brought to Harley; it was not in his nature to pry into the sacred mysteries of a young girl's heart, but the tale moved him all the more deeply when he saw young Lee, a man with a high, noble brow and clear, open eyes, through which his honest soul shone, that all might see. But upon his face was the same faint veil of sadness that hovered over Helen Anderson's, as if hope were lacking.

Harley met young Lee two or three times, and on each occasion purposely 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.