d. Yet there was
in her heart a throb of admiration for him, because he was willing to
throw everything overboard for the love of a woman.

The defection clothed the whole train in the deepest gloom. Tremaine
spoke for the group when he said it was all up with Jimmy Grayson, and
the others did not have the heart even to pretend to a different belief.
With a Plummer defection on one side and a Goodnight falling away on the
other, there was no hope left for a party which even with these wings
faithful had only a desperate fighting chance.

Harley was thoroughly miserable. He could guess--no, he did not guess,
he knew the cause of "King" Plummer's bolt, and he knew, too, that if it
were not for himself it would never have occurred; he had wrecked all
the future of others, nor in making such a wreck had he secured his own
happiness, provided even that he was selfish enough to be happy when
others were ruined.

Sylvia, too, was sunk in the depths. She did not have to be told that
her aunt had written to Mr. Plummer; she guessed that Mr. Plummer had
received some warning, some message, it did not matter from whom,
nothing else could cause him to burst forth with such violence, and the
very nature of the case forbade her from speaking; she could only keep
silent, knowing that significant talk was going on all around her, and
pass sleepless nights and troubled days.

The situation brought a thrill of satisfaction and interest to one man
on the train, and he was Churchill. The cumulative effect of "King"
Plummer's bolt might force Jimmy Grayson off the track, and it was not
yet too late to put up another candidate. Such a thing had never been
done, but that was no reason why it could not succeed, and he
telegraphed Mr. Goodnight that Mr. Grayson was very despondent, and that
those about him knew he did not have a ghost of a chance.

Churchill guessed close to the cause of the Plummer bolt, but he was not
sure, and for that and other reasons he at once sought an interview with
the nominee.

Mr. Grayson was courteous, and seemingly not as despondent as Churchill
had described him. He said that he could not speak of Mr. Plummer's
defection, because he had no official knowledge of the fact; it was
merely report, and hence he could not comment on what was not proved.
Mr. Churchill, he knew, would readily recognize the unfitness of such a
thing, nor could he tell what he should do in supposititious cases,
because, even if the l