hrough brown, ominous clouds, and its light was pale and
cold. A sharp wind whistled against the houses, yet shuttered and silent
in these early morning hours. The city was still asleep, and did not
know that the candidate had come home to hear his fate.

"Is this ugly sky an omen of ill?" asked Churchill, who, despite his
supercilious nature and the fact that he represented an opposition
newspaper, had come at last under the spell of Jimmy Grayson and was in
a way one of the band.

"If it is a gray sky for Mr. Grayson, it is a gray sky for the other
man, too, and I draw no inference from the circumstance," replied
Harley.

Nevertheless there was an oppression over the whole group--perhaps it
was because they were so near the end; and scarcely another word was
said as they walked along the silent street, each thinking of the day at
hand and the night to follow.

The candidate had offered all the hospitality of his house, but none
would accept, not wishing to intrude upon the first freshness of his
family reunion; they intended to register at the hotels and come to his
home later on for the news of the day. So they stopped at a street
corner, bade him a short farewell, and allowed him to go on alone.

But Harley could not resist the temptation of looking back. They had
arrived in the town two hours ahead of time, and he knew that the
candidate's family were not yet expecting him, but he could see the
house behind its shield of trees, now swept of foliage, and already
there were signs of life about it. He saw the candidate's wife run down
the steps and meet her husband, and then he looked away.

"This is one part of a Presidential campaign that we must not watch," he
said to the group about him, and without a word they walked to their
hotel, not glancing back again, although more than one in the group was
secretly envious of Harley, because of the welcome that they knew
awaited him a little later.

It was a good hotel that received them, and it was an abounding
breakfast that awaited them there. Harley sat near a window of the
dining-room, where he could look out upon the street and see the city
coming to life, a process that began but slowly, because it is always a
holiday when the people cast their votes for a President. Yet the city
awoke at last, men began to appear in the streets, a polling-booth
opposite the hotel was opened, and the Presidential election had begun.

The dining-room was now filling up, and