A tall form rose out of the darkness, and a woman, middle-aged and honest of face, appeared. The correspondent knew that it must be Susan. It could be nobody else. She was looking around as if she sought some one. Harley's eye caught Grayson's, and it gave the signal.
"And now, gentlemen," said the candidate, "I am done. I thank you for your attention, and I hope you will think well of what I have said."
So saying, he left the stage, and the crowd dispersed. But Harley waited, and he saw Plover and his wife meet. He saw, too, the look of surprise and then joy on the man's face, and he saw them throw their arms around each other's neck and kiss in the dark. They were only a poor, prosaic, and middle-aged couple, but he knew they were now happy and that all was right between them.
When Grayson went to his room, he fell from exhaustion in a half-faint across the bed; but when Harley told him the next afternoon the cause of it all, he laughed and said it was well worth the price.
They obtained, about a week later, the New York papers containing an account of the record-breaking day. When Harley opened the Monitor, Churchill's paper, he read these head-lines:
GRAYSON'S GAB
HE IS TALKING THE FARMERS OF THE WEST TO
DEATH
TWENTY-FOUR SPEECHES IN TWENTY-FOUR
HOURS
HE TALKS FIFTY THOUSAND WORDS IN ONE DAY,
AND SAYS NOTHING
But when he looked at the Gazette, he saw the following head-lines over his own account: