Brooding much upon the question, a rare frown came to the face of Jimmy Grayson, and stayed there so long that his followers noticed it, and wondered much. They decided that it was the revolt within the party, and did not disturb him, but his wife, more acute, knew that it was not politics, and, sitting down beside him, waited silently until he should speak, as she knew he would in time. A full hour passed thus, and scarcely any one in the train uttered a word. The candidate gazed gloomily out of the window, but he did not see the mountains and the canons as they shot by. Most of the state politicians slept in their seats, and the correspondents either wrote or communed with themselves. Mr. Grayson rose at last, and, saying to his wife, "I should like a word with you in private," led the way to the drawing-room. She followed, knowing that he wished to speak of the trouble on his mind, and she made a shrewd guess as to its nature. "Anna, it is something that I have been trying to put away from me," he said, when they were in the privacy of the drawing-room, "but it won't stay away. I suppose I ought to have spoken to you of it some time ago, but I could not make up my mind to do it." She smiled a little. "I, too, have been dreading the subject," she said, "if it is what I think it is. You are going to speak of Sylvia, Mr. Plummer, and Mr. Harley." "Yes, Harley has a letter from Sylvia, and he will have more. She doesn't want to write to him, but she will. The girl is breaking her heart, and I am not sure that you and I are doing what we ought to do." "And you do not think that Mr. Plummer would make a suitable husband for her?" She regarded him keenly from under lowered eyelids--the question was merely intended to lead to something else. "That is not the point. Harley is the man she loves, and Harley is the man she should marry." "Should she not decide this question for herself?" The candidate studied the face of his wife. Her words, if taken simply as words, would seem metallic and cold, but there was an expression that gave them a wholly different meaning to him. "Under ordinary circumstances, yes," he said, "but the circumstances in which Sylvia finds herself are not ordinary, and I am not sure how far we are responsible for them." "I undertook to act once, and I was sorry that I did so." The candidate did not speak again for several moments, but Mrs. Grayson read his expressive face. "You have thought of something else," she said, "that is or seems to be connected with this affair of Sylvia's." "I have, and I am afraid it is that which has been holding me back." The eyes of the two met, and, although they said no more upon that point, they understood each other perfectly. "Anna," said the candidate, with decision, "you must write to Mr. Plummer. I do not shift this burden from myself to you because of any desire to escape it, but because I know you will write the letter so much better than I can."