The Candidate Part 37

Harley met young Lee two or three times, and on each occasion purposely prolonged the 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 n.o.ble 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 pa.s.sed.

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. "Now, 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 s.h.i.+ning 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 s.p.a.ce; 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, as he met her and took her hands in his.

"Arthur, for the last time!" she exclaimed.

"Yes, I know it is for the last time," said Arthur, and there was a moving sadness in his voice.

Their faces were turned towards the two there in the shadow of the great oak, although unwitting that others were so near, and neither man dared to move. The moonlight, in softened silver, fell upon the faces of the lovers, disclosing all the beauty of the woman's and all the loftiness of the man's. Harley thought he had never seen a n.o.bler pair.

The man took both the girl's hands in his and held them for a few moments. Then he walked back and forth, taking quick little steps. Every motion of his figure expressed agony and despair. The girl stood still, and her face, clearly shown in the moonlight, was turned towards Harley; it, too, expressed agony and despair; but her stillness showed resignation, Lee's fierce movements were full of rebellion.

"I am going away, Helen," said Arthur. "I have decided upon it. I shall not be here more than a week or two longer. I cannot be in the same town, seeing you every day and knowing that you cannot be mine. I could not stand it."

"I suppose it is best," said Helen; "but, Arthur, I love you. I have told you that, and I am proud of it. I shall never love any one else. It is not possible."

Her beautiful, pale face was still turned towards Harley, and he saw again upon it that touch of ineffable sadness and resignation that had moved him so deeply. Lee stopped his despairing walk back and forth and looked at Helen. Then he uttered a little cry and seized her hands again.

"Helen," he said, "I cannot do it! I came here to give you up forever, to tell you that I was going away, and I meant to go, but I cannot do it. We love each other--then who has the right to separate us? I thought that I could stand this, that I had hardened myself to endure it, but when the time comes I find that it is too much. My right to you is greater than that of father or mother. Come with me; we can go to Longford to-night, and in three hours we shall be man and wife."

He still held her hands in his, and his face was flushed and his eyes s.h.i.+ning with an eager but n.o.ble pa.s.sion.

Harley and the candidate, in the shrubbery, never stirred. They listened, but they forgot that they were listening.

The girl lifted her eyes to those of her lover, and there was in them no reproach, only a high, sad courage.

"You do not mean what you say now, Arthur," she said. "I have given my promise to my father, and you must help me to be strong, for alone I am weak, very weak. None can help me but you. You must go, as you said you would go, but your face shall always be with me here. Though I may not be your wife, I shall be true to you all my life."

"In such moments as these the woman is always stronger than the man,"

breathed Jimmy Grayson.

Lee dropped her hands again and walked a step or two away.

"Helen," he said, "forgive me, and forget what I said. I was base when I spoke. But I have found it too hard!--too hard!"

Her eyes still expressed no reproach; there was in them something almost divine. She loved him the more because of his weakness, although she would not yield to it.

"It is hard, very hard for us both," she whispered, "but it must be done. But, Arthur, I love you. I have told you that, and I am not ashamed of it. I shall never love any one else. It is not possible."

"I know it. I know, too, that your heart will always be mine, but, as the world sees it, your father is right. I am nothing. I have no right to a wife--above all, to one such as you. I feel that I have a power within me, the power to do things which the world would call good, but there is no chance. I suppose that the chance will come some day--when it is too late."

Harley started. The words were the echo of his own. "We must go," he whispered to the candidate. "No one has a right to listen, even without intention, at this, their last meeting." Jimmy Grayson had already turned away, and by the faint moonlight sifting through the branches Harley saw a mist in his eyes. But their movement made a sound, and the lovers looked up.

"Did you hear a noise? What was it?" asked Helen.

"Only a lizard in the gra.s.s or a squirrel rattling the bark of a tree,"

replied Arthur.

They listened a moment, but they heard nothing more, save the faint stirring of the wind among the leaves and the gra.s.s.

"Are you really going, Arthur?" asked Helen, as if, approving it once, she would like now to hear him deny it.

He looked at her, his face flus.h.i.+ng and his eyes alight, as if at last he heard her ask him to stay; but he saw in her gaze only brave resolve.

She could love him, and yet she had the strength to sacrifice that love for what she considered her duty. He drew courage from her, and he lifted his head proudly, although his eyes expressed grief alone.

"Yes, I have only to start," he replied; "you know I have little to take. I make just one more public appearance in Egmont. Mr. Grayson speaks here again to-morrow night, and the committee, by some chance--a chance it must have been--has put me on the list of speakers."

"Oh, Arthur, it may be an opportunity for you!"

She was eager, flushed, her eyes flaming and uplifted to his.

"It might be, Helen, at any other time, but this is evil fortune. I am of the other party; I must speak against him--we are fair to both sides here; he will have the right of rejoinder, and you know what he is, Helen--the greatest orator in America, perhaps in all the world. No one yet has ever been able to defeat him, and what chance have I, with no experience, against the most formidable debater in existence? I should s.h.i.+rk it, Helen, if the people would not think me a coward."

"Oh, Arthur, what an ordeal!" She looked up at him with wet, tender eyes.

Harley, at the mention of Jimmy Grayson's name, glanced away from the lovers and towards the candidate. He saw him start, and a singular, soft expression pa.s.s over his face, to be followed by one of doubt.

"Now I shall go, Helen," said Arthur. "It was wrong of me to ask you to meet me here, but I could not go away without seeing you alone and speaking to you alone, as I do now."