Harley's was an answering smile, but his heart was full of a longing and an anger equally fierce. Never had she seemed to him more to be desired than on that morning; tall, straight, and young, instinct with the life and strength of the great upland reaches upon which she lived, her pure soul looking out of her pure eyes, she was a woman to be won by the man to whom her love was given, and he rebelled because he did not have the right. Temptation was strong within him, and he had excuse.
"Speeches, however good, do not appeal to you to-day?" he said.
She pointed to the line of peaks that formed a border of darker blue on the horizon.
"So do I," said Harley, with emphasis, but he meant, at that moment, that he was glad to be alone with her.
"Since chance has brought us together," he said, "why should we not continue in this way?"
They walked on, and he was very close to her, so close that when a wanton wind caught a stray ringlet of her hair it brushed lightly against his cheek. Faint and fleeting as was the touch, every nerve thrilled. He said fiercely to himself that she was his and should remain his.
They came to a little brook, a stream of ice-cold water flowing down from the distant mountains, and he helped her across, although a single step would have carried her from bank to bank. Then, too, he held her hand in his longer than the case warranted, and again he tingled. He said nothing, nor did she, but she glanced at him and she was a little afraid; his lips were closed in the firm fashion that she knew, and his eyes were on the distant mountains. Behind them came a broad shadow, but neither looked back.
Jimmy Grayson was a great man, but Cæsar and his fortunes were now completely forgotten by both Harley and Sylvia; each was thinking only of the other, and though they were still silent, they wandered on and on, Sylvia content that Harley was by her side, and Harley happy to feel her so near that her hair blown in the wind had touched his face. Had they looked back they would have seen the shadow come a little nearer and raise its arm in an angry gesture. The town sank behind the swells, and before lay only a brown expanse of country that rolled away with unbroken monotony. A slight grayish tint, as of a mist, crept into the glittering blue of the sky, but Harley and Sylvia did not notice it.
Sylvia felt, in a way, as if she were in a state of suspended animation. The world had paused for a moment, and for that reason she knew that fate was impending; she, too, felt a thrill running through every nerve, and she felt the presence, so near her, of the man whom she loved, and would always love. He was master to-day, and she knew that she would do whatever he should ask her; all her resolves, all the long course of strengthening through which she might put herself would melt away in the heat of an emotion that was too strong for her; if he said that they should slip back to the town, take a train to the next station and get married there, forgetful of her promise, "King" Plummer, the campaign, her uncle, and everything else, she would go with him. But she remembered to pray that he would not say it.