w, 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,