Through the long, fading afternoon he walked on and on, past the outskirts of the city, on into the peaceful willow-green quiet of the country, where paved streets gave place to meandering red roads and the air was sweet with the delicate fragrance of blossoming fruit-trees. He sat an hour on the violet-blurred grass above the silver-looping river where he had often fished as a boy. All his life he had loved that gold-tinted, dream-shadowed valley. But now the soft wild clamour of birds, the multifold perfume of the fields, the errant plum-petals swimming in the breeze, the long-armed trees reaching out over the darkling water, called to him in vain. He scarcely saw the far, blue, hill-brushed horizon unfurl its pageant cloud-clusters to hide the sun, where it hastened, in purple toga, to greet the soft-eyed night.
What Spartan career had he been planning for himself? He loved her, desired her, still. He realised it with a stab of self-contempt. And loving her, could he see her day by day, meet her, talk with her—cold and empty words meaning less than nothing—with his heart crying to hers: "Thus far but no further! Because I loved you once I wear a shameful brand on my forehead, but my arms may never enfold you, your lips never lie on my lips, your heart beat against mine!—Never, never, never!"—could flesh and blood be capable of this? Better to go, while there was yet time, somewhere, anywhere, so it be out of her world. Under the deep evening sky, a gulf of gold, he turned city-ward again, still painfully absorbed with his thoughts—a dark tangle of anguish and doubt and longing.
As he neared his house speeding urchins were crying newspaper extras, and more than once he heard his name in the shouted, dislocated phrases. His speech! The swan's-song of Harry Sevier!
He let himself into his apartment with his latch-key and wearily switched on the lights. He suddenly remembered that he had eaten nothing since noon and realised that he was wretchedly tired and spent. A pencilled note, with the superscription in Brent's jerky hand, lay on the table. He took it up and opened it.
Then suddenly he gave an inarticulate cry of amaze—of actual fright. He was staring at this message, written an hour before:
Anti-liquor plank adopted. You were nominated for Governor on the first ballot at eight o'clock.
CHAPTER XXXIX
THE JAILBIRD
To every man come portentous moments of decision so packed with fate that all that his after life may hold of pain or joy, seen with the clearer view of later knowledge, may well have hung upon the issue. Harry's one greatest moment of crisis had been when he stood in the doorway of Cameron Craig's house, with that midnight alarm pulsing about him—when he had chosen the course that meant safety for Echo at such bitter cost to himself. The moment when he confronted the blunt fact of his nomination was wellnigh as significant.