hen, when the people recovered themselves, they
poured in a tumult from the hall; but the hero to whom they turned
admiringly was Arthur Lee, their own youthful townsman, and not the
candidate.

The next day Hobart told Harley that Lee had won everything. Mr.
Anderson, sharing the pride of Egmont, could resist no longer, and had
withdrawn his refusal. Arthur and Helen would be married in the winter.

"You see," said Hobart, "young Lee is now a hero."

"But not the greatest hero," said Harley.

"That is true," said Hobart, and then he added, after a moment's pause,
"I could never have done it."

But that night, when Jimmy Grayson left the hall, he went at once to the
hotel with Mrs. Grayson. Luckily there was a side-door, out of which
they slipped so quietly and quickly that not many people had a chance
either to pity him or to exult over him, at least in his presence. Yet
he did not fail to notice more than one sneer on the faces of those who
belonged to the other party, and his cheeks burned for a moment, as
James Grayson, the candidate, had his full store of human pride.

In the hall the amazed crowd lingered, and the correspondents, not less
surprised than the people, gathered in a group to talk it over. Sylvia
was there, too, and she was almost in tears. To none had the blow been
harder than to her, and she was so stunned that she could yet scarcely
credit it. All of the group were sad except Churchill, who felt all the
glory of an I-told-you-so come to judgment.

"It was bound to happen, sooner or later," he said, when he noticed that
Sylvia was not listening; "the man is all froth and foam, but who could
have thought that the bubble would be pricked by an obscure little
Western attorney? Was ever anything more ignominious?"

Then the ancient beau, Tremaine, spoke from a soul that was stirred to
the depths.

"Churchill," he exclaimed, "I've been travelling about the world forty
years, but there are times when I think you are the meanest man I ever
met."

Churchill flushed and clinched his fist, but thought better of it, and
turned off the matter with an uneasy laugh.

"Tremaine," he said, "the older you grow the fonder you become of
superlatives."

"I admired Jimmy Grayson in his triumphs, and I admire him more than
ever in his defeat," said Tremaine, still bristling, and fiercely
twisting his short, gray mustache.

"Mr. Tremaine, I want to thank you," said Sylvia, who, turning to them,
had heard T