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. "No