"My friends, to-night I am but a voice to you, but to-morrow we shall meet face to face. Let not a man be missing. Seaton expects every voter to do his duty. Again I thank you for your kind welcome, and wish you one and all good-night."
"What do they think a man is made of when they call him out to speak in a fog thick enough to slice and butter?" grumbled the orator, getting into his chamber again, and dropping the curtain between him and a second burst of music from the band.
Mr. Yorke raised his eyebrows slightly, and pursed out his under-lip. "What glorious things have you heard of Seaton, and where?" he inquired. "I was not aware that it was famous."
The senator finished the contents of his tumbler, and wiped his moustache carefully. "I have heard that it is an infernally rowdyish little hole," he answered. "I didn't care about coming here, but it was in my stumping programme."
Mr. Yorke took leave, and went homeward very soberly. He was disappointed and depressed, and nature seemed to sympathize with his mood. The road was muddy, and in the thick fog and darkness he could scarcely see the path at the side of it. When he turned into the private way that led to his own house, the trees crowded about, dripping, uncomfortable, and threatening, as if they had met to impeach the clerk of the weather, and concert measures for the putting down of this Scotch mist that was presuming to befog a free, enlightened New England forest. When he reached the gate, Mr. Yorke leaned on it a moment. "Oh! for the laws of the Locrians!" he exclaimed.
"Charles, is that you?" asked a soft voice near.
"Why, Amy!" returned the gentleman, starting.
"I was looking for you," Mrs. Yorke explained, taking her husband's arm. "I hate to have you come up this road alone."
Her thin dress was damp, her hands cold, her heart fluttering. She had been walking up and down the avenue for the last hour, listening for her husband's step. How did she know what might happen to him? The people were violent, and he was uncompromising and bold. Oh! why had she consented to return to that place where her youth had been blighted? No good had ever come to her there, nothing but sorrow.
"O woman, woman! how you do torment yourself!" Mr. Yorke ejaculated. "You will have it that we are in danger. You will have it that we are being hanged, drawn, and quartered, if we are ten minutes beyond the time."