Part 58

But the words most grateful to Jimmy Grayson were the thanks of the fledgling's father. The little drama of the side-box and the telegraph-key was known to but five people--the candidate, Harley, the two operators, and happy Mr. Moore. The old gentleman, indeed, said something about Mr. Grayson having helped him, but it was taken by the others to mean that a mere chance, a lucky combination of circumstances, had come to his aid, and they failed to see in it anything of prearrangement or even intention. Hence there appeared on the surface nothing to be criticised even by Churchill, ever on the lookout for an incident that seemed to him incongruous or irrelevant.

Harley made it an excuse for something that he wished very much to do. About this time Mrs. Grayson, returning from Salt Lake City, rejoined them, but she did not bring Sylvia with her, leaving her in the Mormon capital for a further stay with relatives. But Harley wrote a long letter to Sylvia, beginning with the story of the spellbinder, and he told her that his admiration for the candidate steadily increased, because Mr. Grayson was able, at all times, even in the heat of the hottest campaign that the Union had ever known, to put the highest attributes of the human heart--mercy, gentleness, help--before his own political good or even that of his party. Mr. Grayson might be beaten, but he would make a record that must become a source of pride, not to his party alone, but to the whole country. In fact, Mr. Grayson belonged to humanity, and the race might lay claim to him as one of its finest types.

Then from Mr. Grayson he glided to the other, and, to Harley, greater topic--herself. He told her that nothing had occurred to make him change his wishes or his hopes; since her absence began his resolve had grown. He felt more than ever that the claim of Mr. Plummer upon her, though of a high and noble nature, even if he did hold her promise, must yield to the love of the husband for the wife. Mr. Plummer would come to see this, and he would come to see it in time. He had no desire to interfere with the natural affection of the man who had done so much for Sylvia, nor did he feel that he was making such interference.

Harley was not sure that he would receive a reply to this letter, but it came in due time, nevertheless, and it was Jimmy Grayson himself who handed it to him. The handwriting of the address was known, of course, to Mr. Grayson, and he could scarcely have failed to notice it, but he said nothing, and apparently the fact passed unheeded by him.

Sylvia, in the course of her letter, confined herself to impartial narrative, and began with the event of the spellbinder, which Harley had told to her in detail. Indeed, it seemed to Harley that she devoted a very remarkable amount of space to its consideration, especially as she agreed with him that Mr. Grayson's action was right; nevertheless, she discussed it from all points of the compass, and then she wrote with almost equal amplitude of her sight-seeing in Salt Lake City.

Harley knew that Mormons were no novelty to Sylvia, as she had seen many of them in Idaho, but she seemed to feel it necessary to describe with particularity all the great Mormon buildings, and also to speak fully of the manners and customs of the people. All this might have been very interesting to him at another time and from another pen, but now he saw only the handwriting and wished her to devote attention to that little codicil in his own letter in which he so earnestly avowed again his love and his belief in its ultimate triumph. She made no allusion whatever to it, and he felt his heart sink. Nor did she speak of "King" Plummer, and he could not gather from the letter whether he was yet in Salt Lake City or had gone back to Idaho. She had carefully avoided all the subjects on which he hoped she would write, and as he closed the letter and put it in his pocket he was still rather blue.

But reflection put him in a different and much more pleasant frame of mind. The fact that she had replied was a good omen, and her very avoidance of the most delicate of all subjects was proof that she did not forbid it to him. Harley was a bold man, and, being ready to push his fortune to the utmost in a cause that he believed righteous, he resolved to write her another letter in a few days, and to repeat in it much that he had said in his first, or to say words to the same effect.

Meanwhile his countenance assumed a joyous cast, which was noticeable because he was habitually of grave demeanor, and his associates, observing the change, taxed him with the fact and demanded an explanation, Hobart in particular wishing to know. Harley lightly ascribed it to the rarefied air, as they were ascending a plateau, and the others, though calling it the baldest and poorest of replies, were forced to be content.

But one man who noticed Harley, and who said nothing, guessed much closer to the cause. It was Mr. Grayson himself, who had seen the address on the envelope, and it aroused grave thoughts in him. Nor were these thoughts unkind to Sylvia or Harley. It was the custom of the candidate to subject himself at intervals to a searching mental examination, and now he made James Grayson walk out before him again and undergo this minute process.

He was extremely fond of Sylvia, whose grace, intelligence, and loyalty appealed to the best in him, and he was anxious to secure her happiness and her position in life, on which, in a measure, the former depended. For these reasons he had received with pleasure the news that Sylvia was going to marry Mr. Plummer. Despite the disparity of ages, the match seemed fitting to him; he knew the worth and honor of the "King" to be so great that the happiness of any young girl, especially that of one who owed so much to him, ought to be safe in his keeping. But now the doubts which had begun to form were growing stronger. He saw that nature was playing havoc with mere material fitness, and there came to him the question of his own duty.

The candidate now knew well enough that Sylvia did not love Mr. Plummer as a girl should love the man whom she is going to marry, but that she did love Harley. He conceived it, too, to be a true and lasting love with both the young man and the young woman, and again came to him that question of his own duty, a question not only troublesome, but dangerous to him in his present situation. He knew that Sylvia, despite all, would marry "King" Plummer unless the unforeseen occurred, and make herself unhappy all her life. Should he, then, tell "King" Plummer, or have his wife tell him in the more indirect and delicate way women have, that the burden of the situation rested upon him, and that he ought to release Sylvia? The candidate shrank from such a task; he could not meddle, even when it was his own niece whom he wished to save, and there was another thought, too, in the background which he strove honestly to keep out of his mind; it was the old apprehension lest the "King" in his rage, particularly when it was the candidate himself who took from him his heart's desire, should rebel, or at least sulk and put the Mountain States in the opposing column. It was no less true now than in the Middle Ages that men disappointed in love some times did desperate things, and "King" Plummer was a full-blooded, impulsive man.

Brooding much upon the question, a rare frown came to the face of Jimmy Grayson, and stayed there so long that his followers noticed it, and wondered much. They decided that it was the revolt within the party, and did not disturb him, but his wife, more acute, knew that it was not politics, and, sitting down beside him, waited silently until he should speak, as she knew he would in time. A full hour passed thus, and scarcely any one in the train uttered a word. The candidate gazed gloomily out of the window, but he did not see the mountains and the cañons as they shot by. Most of the state politicians slept in their seats, and the correspondents either wrote or communed with themselves.

Mr. Grayson rose at last, and, saying to his wife, "I should like a word with you in private," led the way to the drawing-room. She followed, knowing that he wished to speak of the trouble on his mind, and she made a shrewd guess as to its nature.

"Anna, it is something that I have been trying to put away from me," he said, when they were in the privacy of the drawing-room, "but it won't stay away. I suppose I ought to have spoken to you of it some time ago, but I could not make up my mind to do it."

She smiled a little.

"I, too, have been dreading the subject," she said, "if it is what I think it is. You are going to speak of Sylvia, Mr. Plummer, and Mr. Harley."

"Yes, Harley has a letter from Sylvia, and he will have more. She doesn't want to write to him, but she will. The girl is breaking her heart, and I am not sure that you and I are doing what we ought to do."

"And you do not think that Mr. Plummer would make a suitable husband for her?"

She regarded him keenly from under lowered eyelids--the question was merely intended to lead to something else.

"That is not the point. Harley is the man she loves, and Harley is the man she should marry."

"Should she not decide this question for herself?"

The candidate studied the face of his wife. Her words, if taken simply as words, would seem metallic and cold, but there was an expression that gave them a wholly different meaning to him.

"Under ordinary circumstances, yes," he said, "but the circumstances in which Sylvia finds herself are not ordinary, and I am not sure how far we are responsible for them."

"I undertook to act once, and I was sorry that I did so."

The candidate did not speak again for several moments, but Mrs. Grayson read his expressive face.

"You have thought of something else," she said, "that is or seems to be connected with this affair of Sylvia's."

"I have, and I am afraid it is that which has been holding me back."

The eyes of the two met, and, although they said no more upon that point, they understood each other perfectly.