The Key to Yesterday

, in part at least, used the "air line" much less frequently than in the days that had been. Once, when Steele had left the cabin early to dine at the "big house,"

in mid-channel, and recognized Steele's tenor in the drifting strains of a sentimental song. There was no moon, and the river was only a black mirror for the stars. The tree-grown banks were blacker fri

f pictures to his Eastern agent for exhibition and sale, and he wished to include several of the landscapes he had painted since his arrival at the cabin. Finding cr

ould have been noticeable. His visits were, however, rarer, and on one occ

on to Venezuela where some old friends are in the diplomatic service," she sa

ith enthusiasm, asking to be admitted to t

had procrastinated too long. He had secretly planned his own trip of self-investigation for a time when the equatorial heat h

s? They are always ready to go touring. They've exh

ingered, and later, while the whippoorwills were calling and a small owl pl

"is there no chance for m

, and shook h

ered earnestly, "because I love you as a very dearest

the Platonic attitude all summer, but to-night makes all the old uncon

e to hurt you-but I'd have to lie to you if

-any new reas

itated in silence, an

amend. "Whether there is a new reason or just all the old ones, is t

he shook

no way anyone can

ah. The glow of his pipe bowl was a point of red against the black.

Steele sa

t asked Duska if

other had not suspected the fire under what he believed to be an extinct crater. His own feeling had

d, dully. "I

his hand on the do

urse, I really knew it all the while, and yet I had to ask once more. I sha'n't ask again. I

Saxon, and she knew that he had shown in every wordless way that he loved her, yet could she be mistaken? Would he ever speak, since he had not spoken at the clif

of many times, but to live to the age which he guessed his years would total, and then love as he did, was irremediable. For just that reason, he must remain silent, and must go away. To enter her life by the gate she seemed willing to open for him would mea

art life must be her portrait. He wanted to paint it, not in the conventional evening-gown in which she seemed a young queen among

a position that the sun struck down through the leaves, kissing into color her cheeks and eyes and hair. It was a pose that called for a daring palette, one which, if he succeeded in getting on his canvas

-thoughts which the model did not know her face revealed. At times, Mrs. Horton sat in the shade near by, and watched the hand that nursed the canvas with its brush, the steady, bare forearm that needed no mahlstick for support and

able with it. Some men write love-letters that are wonderful heart documents, but they write them in black and white, with words. Saxon was not only writing a love-letter, but was painting all that his resolve did not let him

day after the posing ended, and while he rested, and let her rest, the face of the canvas was covered with another which was blank. Finally came the time to ask her opinion. The afternoon light had begun to change with the hint of lengthening shadows. The o

d his hand on the covering. He hesitated a moment, and his fingers on the blank canvas trembled. He was unveiling the effort of h

She turned her eyes to him, and rose unsteadily from her seat. Her hands went to her breast, and she wavered

he asked, in a

oo, what silence must cost him. Other persons might see only wonderful art in the

racle!" she

then his face became gray, and he half

to his side, and her young

t, dear?"

e had been building and fortifying and strengthening through the p

and in love. There was no world but the garden, and that world was flooded with the sun and the light of love. The present could

not harbor meaner thoughts. She loved him. She was in his arms, therefore h

f forty dead centuries, but one that held in cryptic silence all the future. He could not offer a l

himself repeating over

oice, through

else-never until now. And," she added proudl

tal. He, too, had the right to his hour of happiness, to a life of happiness! In the strength of his exaltation, it seemed to him that he could force

, he felt more than a match for mere facts and conditions. It seemed ridiculous that h

rful women and all the other wonderful loves from the beginning of time have been! It was,"

udden resolve to tell everything. Saxon, feeling only triumph, did not

were silent, but walking on the milky way, their feet stirring nothing meaner than star-dust. On the verandah, Steele met them, and handed h

n had time to glance at it, or even to mark its distant startin

twhile

otten me. It has come to my hearing through certain channels-subterranean, of course-tha

fectly respectable artist!

government. That is God's truth and I can prove it. I would have written before, but since you beat it to God's Country and

S.