s very honest about it. "I didn't dream that you felt like
that--about me."

"No, you wouldn't. That's a part of your splendidness. Never taking
anything to yourself. Jane, will you believe this--that what I may be
hereafter will be because of you? If I ever do a big thing or a fine
thing it will be because I came upon you that night with your head high
and that rabble round you. You were light shining into the darkness of
Tinkersfield. Jove, I wish I were a painter to put you on canvas as you
were that night!"

They had ridden down later under the stars, and as they had stood for a
moment overlooking the lights of the little town O-liver had said: "I
make my big speech to-morrow night to beat Tillotson. I want you to be
there. Will you? If I know you are there somewhere in the dark I shall
pour out my soul--to you."

Was it any wonder that Jane, talking to Tommy the next morning about
O-liver, felt her pulses pounding, her cheeks burning? She had lain
awake all night thinking of the things he had said to her. It seemed a
very big and wonderful thing that a man could love her like that. As
toward morning the moonlight streamed in and she still lay awake she
permitted herself to let her mind dwell for a moment on what her future
might mean if he were in it. She was too busy and healthy to indulge in
useless regrets. But she knew in that moment in the moonlight if he was
not to be in her future no other man would ever be.

VIII

O-liver's speech was made in the open. There was a baseball park in
Tinkersfield, bounded at the west end by a grove of eucalyptus. With
this grove as a background a platform had been erected. From the
platform the rival candidates would speak. At this time of the year it
would be daylight when the meeting opened. Tillotson was not to speak
for himself. He had brought a man down from San Francisco, a big
politician with an oily tongue. O-liver would of course present his own
case. The thing, as Atwood told Henry, promised to be exciting.

Jane came with Tommy. There was a sort of rude grand stand opposite the
platform, and she had a seat well up toward the top. She wore a white
skirt, a gray sweater and a white hat. She had a friendly smile for the
people about her. And they smiled back. They liked Jane.

O-liver spoke first. Bare-headed, slender, with his air of eternal
youth, he was silhouetted against the rose red of the afterglow.

When he began he led them lightly along paths o