The Key To Yesterday

Charles Neville Buck

The Key to Yesterday

CHAPTER I

The palings of the grandstand inclosure

creaked in protest under the pressure. The shad-

ows of forward-surging men wavered far out

across the track. A smother of ondriving dust

broke, hurricane-like, around the last turn,

sweeping before it into the straightaway a strug-

gling mass of horse-flesh and a confusion of

stable-colors. Back to the right, the grand-

stand came to its feet, bellowing in a madman's

chorus.

Out of the forefront of the struggle strained

a blood-bay colt. The boy, crouched over the

shoulders, was riding with hand and heel to

the last ounce of his strength and the last sub-

tle feather-weight of his craft and skill. At

his saddleskirts pressed a pair of distended

nostrils and a black, foam-flecked muzzle. Be-

hind, with a gap of track and daylight between,

trailed the laboring " ruck."

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A tall stranger, who had lost his companion

and host in the maelstrom of the betting shed,

had taken his stand near the angle where the

paddock grating meets the track fence. A

Derby crowd at Churchill Downs is a conges-

tion of humanity, and in the obvious impossi-

bility of finding his friend he could here at

least give his friend the opportunity of finding

him, since at this point were a few panels of

fence almost clear. As the two colts fought

out the final decisive furlongs, the black nose

stealing inch by inch along the bay neck, the

stranger's face wore an interest not altogether

that of the casual race-goer. His shoulders

were thrown back, and his rather lean jaw angle

swept into an uncompromising firmness of chin

— just now uptilted.

The man stood something like six feet of

clear-cut physical fitness. There was a declara-

tion in his breadth of shoulder and depth of

chest, in his slenderness of waist and thigh, of

a life spent only partly within walls, while the

free swing of torso might have intimated to

the expert observer that some of it had been

spent in the saddle.

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Of the face itself, the eyes were the com-

manding features. They were gray eyes, set

under level brows; keenly observant by token

of their clear light, yet tinged by a half-wistful

softness that dwells hauntingly in the eyes of

dreamers.

Just now, the eyes saw not only the determi-

nation of a four-furlong dash for two-year-

olds, but also, across the fresh turf of the in-

field, the radiant magic of May, under skies

washed brilliant by April's rains.

Then, as the colts came abreast and passed

in a muffled roar of drumming hoofs, his eyes

suddenly abandoned the race at the exact mo-

ment of its climax: as hundreds of heads

craned toward the judges' stand, his own gaze

became a stare focused on a point near his

elbow.

He stared because he had seen, as it seemed

to him, a miracle, and the miracle was a girl.

It was, at all events, nothing short of miracu-

lous that such a girl should be discovered stand-

ing, apparently unaccompanied, down in this

bricked area, a few yards from the paddock

and the stools of the bookmakers.

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Unlike his own, her eyes had remained con-

stant to the outcome of the race, and now her

face was averted, so that only the curve of one

cheek, a small ear and a curling tendril of brown

hair under the wide, soft brim of her Panama

hat rewarded him for the surrender of the spec-

tacle on the track.

Most ears, he found himself reflecting with

a sense of triumphant discovery, simply grow

on the sides of heads, but this one might have

been fashioned and set by a hand gifted with

the exquisite perfection of the jeweler's art.

A few moments before, the spot where she

stood had been empty save for a few touts and

trainers. It seemed inconceivable, in the abrupt

revelation of her presence, that she could, like

himself, have been simply cut off from com-

panions and left for the interval waiting. He

caught himself casting about for a less prosaic

explanation. Magic would seem to suit her

better than mere actuality. She was sinuously

slender, and there was a splendid hint of gal-

lantry in the unconscious sweep of her shoul-

ders. He was conscious that the simplicity of

her pongee gown loaned itself to an almost

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barbaric freedom of carriage with the same

readiness as do the draperies of the Winged

Victory. Yet, even the Winged Victory achieves

her grace by a pose of triumphant action, while

this woman stood in repose except for the deli-

cate forward-bending excitement of watching

the battle in the stretch.

The man was not, by nature, susceptible.

Women as sex magnates had little part in his

life cosmos. The interest he felt now with

electrical force, was the challenge that beauty

in any form made upon his enthusiasm. Per-

haps, that was why he stood all unrealizing the

discourtesy of his gaping scrutiny — a scrutiny

that, even with her eyes turned away, she must

have felt.

At all events, he must see her face. As the

crescendo of the grandstand's suspense grad-

uated into the more positive note of climax

and began to die, she turned toward him. Her

lips were half-parted, and the sun struck her

cheeks and mouth and chin into a delicate bril-

liance of color, while the hat-brim threw a

band of shadow on forehead and eyes. The

man's impression was swift and definite. He

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had been waiting to see, and was prepared.

The face, he decided, was not beautiful by the

gauge of set standards. It was, however,

beautiful in the better sense of its individuality;

in the delicacy of the small, yet resolute, chin

and the expressive depth of the eyes. Just

now, they were shaded into dark pools of blue,

but he knew they could brighten into limpid

violet.

She straightened up as she turned and met

his stare with a steadiness that should have

disconcerted it, yet he found himself still study-

ing her with the detached, though utterly en-

grossed, interest of the critic. She did not start

or turn hurriedly away. Somehow, he caught

the realization that flight had no part in her

system of things.

The human tide began flowing back toward

the betting shed, and left them alone in a

cleared space by the palings. Then, the man

saw a quick anger sweep into the girl's face

and deepen the color of her cheeks. Her chin

went up a trifle, and her lips tightened.

He found himself all at once in deep con-

fusion. He wanted to tell her that he had not

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realized the actuality of his staring imperti-

nence, until she had, with a flush of unuttered

wrath and embarrassment, revealed the depth

of his felony ... for he could no longer re-

gard it as a misdemeanor.

There was a note of contempt in her eyes

that stung him, and presently he found him-

self stammering an excuse.

" I beg your pardon — I didn't realize it,"

he began lamely. Then he added as though to

explain it all with the frank outspokenness of a

school-boy: "I was wishing that I could paint

you — I couldn't help gazing."

For a few moments as she stood rigidly and

indignantly silent, he had opportunity to re-

flect on the inadequacy of his explanation. At

last, she spoke with the fine disdain of affronted

royalty.

" Are you quite through looking at me?

May I go now? "

He was contrite.

" I don't know that I could explain — but

it wasn't meant to be — to be " He broke

off, floundering.

" It's a little strange," she commented

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quietly as though talking to herself, "because

you look like a gentleman."

The man flushed.

" You are very kind and flattering," he said,

his face instantly hardening. " I sha'n't tax you

with explanation. I don't suppose any woman

could be induced to understand that a man may

look at her — even stare at her — without disre-

spect, just as he might look at a sunset or a

wonderful picture." Then, he added half in

apology, half in defiance : " I don't know much

about women anyway."

For a moment, the girl stood with her face

resolutely set, then she looked up again, meet-

ing his eyes gravely, though he thought that

she had stifled a mutinous impulse of her

pupils to riffle into amusement.

" I must wait here for my uncle," she told

him. " Unless you have to stay, perhaps you

had better go."

The tall stranger swung off toward the bet-

ting shed without a backward glance, and en-

gulfed himself in the mob where one had to

fight and shoulder a difficult way in zigzag

course.

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Back of the forming lines of winners with

tickets to cash, he caught sight of a young man

almost as tall as himself and characterized by

the wholesome attractiveness of one who has

taken life with zest and decency. He wore

also upon feature and bearing the stamp of an

aristocracy that is not decadent. To the side

of this man, the stranger shouldered his way.

" Since you abandoned me," he accused,

" I've been standing out there like a little boy

who has lost his nurse." After a pause, he

added: "And I've seen a wonderful girl — the

one woman in your town I want to meet."

His host took him by the elbow, and began

steering him toward the paddock gate.

" So, you have discovered a divinity, and are

ready to be presented. And you are the scof-

fer who argues that women may be eliminated.

You are 1 — or were — the man who didn't care

to know them."

The guest answered calmly and with brevity:

" I'm not talking about women. I'm talk-

ing about a woman — and she's totally dif-

ferent."

11 Who is she, Bob?"

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" How should I know? "

" I know a few of them — suppose you de-

scribe her."

The stranger halted and looked at his friend

and host with commiserating pity. When he

deigned to speak, it was with infinite scorn.

" Describe her! Why, you fool, I'm no poet

laureate, and, if I were, I couldn't describe

her!"

For reply, he received only the disconcerting

mockery of ironical laughter.

" My interest," the young man of the fence

calmly deigned to explain, " is impersonal. I

want to meet her, precisely as I'd get up early

in the morning and climb a mountain to see the

sun rise over a particularly lovely valley. It's

not as a woman, but as an object of art."

On other and meaner days, the track at

Churchill Downs may be in large part sur-

rendered to its more rightful patrons, the

chronics and apostles of the turf, and racing

may be only racing as roulette is roulette. But

on Derby Day it is as though the community

paid tribute to the savor of the soil, and hon-

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ored in memory the traditions of the ancient

regime.

To-day, in the club-house inclosure, the

roomy verandahs, the close-cropped lawn and

even the roof-gallery were crowded; not in-

deed to the congestion of the grandstand's per-

spiring swarm, for Fashion's reservation still

allowed some luxury of space, but beyond the

numbers of less important times. In the bur-

geoning variety of new spring gowns and hats,

the women made bouquets, as though living

flov/ers had been brought to the shrine of the

thoroughbred.

A table at the far end of the verandah

seemed to be a little Mecca for strolling visit-

ors. In the party surrounding it, one might

almost have caught the impression that the

prettiness of the feminine display had been

here arranged, and that in scattering attractive

types along the front of the white club-house,

some landscape gardener had reserved the

most appealing beauties for a sort of climac-

teric effect at the end.

Sarah and Anne Preston were there, and

wherever the Preston sisters appeared there

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also were usually gathered together men, not

to the number of two and three, but in full

quorum. And, besides the Preston sisters, this

group included Miss Buford and a fourth girl.

Indeed, it seemed to be this fourth who held,

with entire unconsciousness, more than an equal

share of attention. Duska Filson was no more

cut to the pattern of the ordinary than the Rus-

sian name her romantic young mother had

given her was an exponent of the life about

her. She was different, and at every point of

her divergence from a routine type it was the

type that suffered by the contrast. Having

preferred being a boy until she reached that

age when it became necessary to bow to the

dictate of Fate and accept her sex, she had re-

tained an understanding for, and a comradeship

with, men that made them hers in bondage.

This quality she had combined with all that

was subtly and deliciously feminine, and,

though she loved men as she loved small boys,

some of them had discovered that it was al-

ways as men, never as a man.

She had a delightfully refractory way of

making her own laws to govern her own world

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— a system for which she offered no apology;

and this found its vindication in the fact

that her world was well-governed — though

with absolutism.

The band was blaring something popular

and reminiscent of the winter's gayeties, but the

brasses gave their notes to the May air, and

the May air smoothed and melted them into

softness. Duska's eyes were fixed on the

green turf of the infield where several sentinel

trees pointed into the blue.

Mr. Walter Bellton, having accomplished

the marvelous feat of escaping from the book-

maker's maelstrom with the immaculateness of

his personal appearance intact, sauntered up to

drop somewhat languidly into a chair.

"When one returns in triumph," he com-

mented, " one should have chaplets of bay and

arches to walk under. It looks to me as

though the reception-committee has not been

on the job."

Sarah Preston raised a face shrouded in

gravity. Her voice was velvety, but Bellton

caught its undernote of ridicule.

" I render unto Caesar those things that

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are Caesar's — but what is your latest tri-

umph? " She put her question innocently.

" Did you win a bet? "

If Mr. Bellton's quick-flashing smile was an

acknowledgment of the thrust at his some-

what notorious self-appraisement, his manner

at least remained imperturbably complacent.

" I was not clamoring for my own just

dues," he explained, with modesty. " For my-

self, I shall be satisfied with an unostentatious

tablet in bronze when I'm no longer with you

in the flesh. In this instance I was speaking for

another."

He did not hasten to announce the name of

the other. In even the little things' of life, this

gentleman calculated to a nicety dramatic val-

ues and effects. Just as a public speaker in

nominating a candidate works up to a climax

of eulogy, and pauses to let his hearers shout,

" Name him ! Name your man ! " so Mr. Bell-

ton paused, waiting for someone to ask of

whom he spoke.

It was little Miss Buford who did so with

the debutante's legitimate interest in the pos-

sibility of fresh conquest.

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" And who has returned in triumph? "

" George Steele."

Sarah Preston arched her brows in mild in-

terest.

" So, the wanderer is home ! I had the idea

he was painting masterpieces in the Quartier

Latin, or wandering about with a sketching

easel in southern Spain."

"Nevertheless, he is back," affirmed the

man, " and he has brought with him an even

greater celebrity than himself — a painter of in-

ternational reputation, it would seem. I met

them a few moments ago in the paddock, and

Steele intimated that they would shortly arrive

to lay their joint laurels at your feet."

Louisville society was fond of George Steele,

and, when on occasion he dropped back from

" the happy roads that lead around the world,"

it was to find a welcome in his home city only

heightened by his long absence.

"Who is this greater celebrity?" demanded

Miss Buford. She knew that Steele belonged

to Duska Filson, or at least that whenever he

returned it was to renew the proffer of himself,

even though with the knowledge that the

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answer would be as it had always been: nega-

tive. Her interest was accordingly ready to

consider in alternative the other man.

" Robert A. Saxon — the first disciple of

Frederick Marston," declared Mr. Bellton.

If no one present had ever heard the name

before, the consequential manner of its an-

nouncement would have brought a sense of de-

plorable unenlightenment.

Bellton's eyes, despite the impression of

weakness conveyed by the heavy lenses of his

nose-glasses, missed little, and he saw that

Duska Filson still looked off abstractedly

across the bend of the homestretch, taking no

note of his heralding.

" Doesn't the news of new arrivals excite

you, Miss Filson?" he inquired, with a touch

of drawl in his voice.

The girl half-turned her head with a smile

distinctly short of enthusiasm. She did not

care for Bellton. She was herself an exponent

of all things natural and unaffected, and she

read between the impeccably regular lines of

his personality, with a criticism that was ad-

verse.

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" You see," she answered simply, " it's not

news. I've seen George since he came."

"Tell us all about this celebrity," prompted

Miss Buford, eagerly. " What is he like? "

Duska shook her head.

" I haven't seen him. He was to arrive this

morning."

" So, you see," supplemented Mr. Bellton

with a smile, "you will, after all, have to fall

back on me — I have seen him."

" You," demurred the debutante with a

disappointed frown, " are only a man. What

does a man know about another man?"

"The celebrity," went on Mr. Bellton,

ignoring the charge of inefficiency, " avoids

women." He paused to laugh. " He was tell-

ing Steele that he had come to paint landscape,

and I am afraid he will have to be brought

lagging into your presence."

" It seems rather brutal to drag him here,"

suggested Anne Preston. " I, for one, am

willing to spare him the ordeal."

" However," pursued Mr. Bellton with

some zest of recital, " I have warned him. I

told him what dangerous batteries of eyes he

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must encounter. It seemed to me unfair to let

him charge into the lists of loveliness all un-

armed — with his heart behind no shield."

" And he . . . how did he take your

warning?" demanded Miss Buford.

" I think it is his craven idea to avoid the

danger and retreat at the first opportunity.

He said that he was a painter, had even been a

cow-puncher once, but that society was beyond

his powers and his taste."

The group had been neglecting the track.

Now, from the grandstand came once more the

noisy outburst that ushers the horses into the

stretch, and conversation died as the party came

to its feet.

None of its members noticed for the moment

the two young men who had made their way

between the chairs of the verandah until they

stood just back of the group, awaiting their

turn for recognition.

As the horses crossed the wire and the pan-

demonium of the stand fell away, George

Steele stepped forward to present his guest.

" This is Mr. Robert Saxon," he announced.

" He will paint the portraits of you girls almost

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as beautiful as you really are. . . . It's as

far as mere art can go."

Saxon stood a trifle abashed at the form of

presentation as the group turned to greet him.

Something in the distance had caught Duska

Filson's imagination-brimming eyes. She was

sitting with her back turned, and did not hear

Steele's approach nor turn with the others.

Saxon's casually critical glance passed rap-

idly over the almost too flawless beauty of the

Preston sisters and the flower-like charm of

little Miss Buford, then fell on a slender girl

in a simple pongee gown and a soft, wide-

brimmed Panama hat. Under the hat-brim,

he caught the glimpse of an s ear that might

have been fashioned by a jeweler and a curl-

ing tendril of brown hair. If Saxon had in-

deed been the timorous man Bellton intimated,

the glimpse would have thrown him into panic.

As it was, he showed no sign of alarm.

His presentation as a celebrity had focused

attention upon him in a manner momentarily

embarrassing. He found a subtle pleasure in

the -thought that it had not called this girl's

eyes from whatever occupied them out beyond

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the palings. Saxon disliked the ordinary.

His canvases and his enthusiasms were alike

those of the individualist.

" Duska," laughed Miss Buford, " come

back from your dreams, and be introduced to

Mr. Saxon."

The painter acknowledged a moment of sus-

pense. What would be her attitude when she

recognized the man who had stared at her

down by the paddock fence?

The girl turned. Except himself, no one

saw the momentary flash of amused surprise in

her eyes, the quick change from grave blue to

flashing violet and back again to grave blue.

To the man, the swiftly shifting light of it

seemed to say: "You are at my mercy; what-

ever liberality you receive is at the gift and

pleasure of my generosity."

" I beg your pardon," she said simply, ex-

tending her hand. " I was just thinking — " she

paused to laugh frankly, and it was the music

of the laugh that most impressed Saxon — " I

hardly know what I was thinking."

He dropped with a sense of privileged good-

fortune into the vacant chair at her side.

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With just a hint of mischief riffling her

eyes, but utter artlessness in her voice, she

regarded him questioningly.

" I wonder if we have not met somewhere

before? It seems to me "

" Often," he asserted. " I think it was in

Babylon first, perhaps. And you were a girl

in Macedon when I was a spearman in the

army of Alexander."

She sat as reflective and grave as though

she were searching her recollections of Baby-

lon and Macedon for a chance acquaintance,

but under the gravity was a repressed sparkle

of mischievous delight.

After a moment, he demanded brazenly:

" Would you mind telling me which colt

won that first race?"

CHAPTER II

" His career has been pretty much a march

of successive triumphs through the world of

art, and he has left the critics only one peg on

which to hang their carping."

Steele spoke with the warmth of enthusi-

asm. He had succeeded in capturing Duska

for a few minutes of monopoly in the semi-

solitude of the verandah at the back of the

club-house. Though he had a hopeless cause

of his own to plead, it was characteristic of

him that his first opportunity should go to the

praise of his friend.

"What is that?" The girl found herself

unaccountably interested and ready to assume

this stranger's defense even before she knew

with what his critics charged him.

"That he is a copyist," explained the man;

"that he is so enamored of the style of Fred-

erick Marston that his pictures can't shake off

the influence. He is great enough to blaze

his own trail — to create his own school, rather

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than to follow in the tracks of another. Of

course," he hastened to defend, " that is hardly

a valid indictment. Every master is, at the be-

ginning of his career, strongly affected by the

genius of some greater master. The only

mistake lies in following in the footsteps of

one not yet dead. To play follow-the-leader

with a man of a past century is permissible

and laudable, but to give the same allegiance

to a contemporary is, in the narrow view of

the critics, to accept a secondary place."

The Kentuckian sketched with ardor the

dashing brilliance of the other's achievement:

how five years had brought him from lethal

obscurity to international fame; how, though a

strictly American product who had not studied

abroad, his Salon pictures had electrified Paris.

And the girl listened with attentive interest.

When the last race was ended and the thou-

sands were crowding out through the gates,

Saxon heard his host accepting a dinner invi-

tation for the evening.

" I shall have a friend stopping in town on

his way East, whom I want you all to meet,"

explained Mr. Bellton, the prospective host.

2 3

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" He is one Senor Ribero, an attache of a South

American legation, and he may prove inter-

esting."

Saxon caught himself almost frowning. He

did not care for society's offerings, but the en-

gagement was made, and he had now no alter-

native to adding his declaration of pleasure

to that of his host. He was, however, silent to

taciturnity as Steele's runabout chugged its way

along in the parade of motors and carriages

through the gates of the race-track inclosure.

In his pupils, the note of melancholy unrest

was decided, where ordinarily there was only

the hint.

"There is time,' 1 suggested the host, "for

a run out the Boulevard; I'd like to show you

a view or two."

The suggestion of looking at a promising

landscape ordinarily challenged Saxon's interest

to the degree of enthusiasm. Now, he only

nodded.

It was not until Steele, who drove his own

car, stopped at the top of the Iroquois Park

hill that Saxon spoke. They had halted at the

southerly brow of the ridge from which the

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eye sweeps a radius of twenty miles over

purpled hills and polychromatic valleys, to yet

other hills melting into a sky of melting tur-

quois. Looking across the colorful reaches,

Saxon gave voice to his enthusiasm.

They left the car, and stood on the rocks that

jut out of the clay at the road's edge. Be-

neath them, the wooded hillside fell away, three

hundred feet of precipitous slope and tangle.

For a time, Saxon's eyes were busy with the avid

drinking in of so much beauty, then once more

they darkened as he wheeled toward his

companion.

"George," he said slowly, "you told me

that we were to go to a cabin of yours tucked

away somewhere in the hills, and paint land-

scape. I caught the idea that we were to lead

a sort of camp-life— that we were to be hermits

except for the companionship of our palettes

and nature and each other— and the few neigh-

bors that one finds in the country, and "

The speaker broke off awkwardly.

Steele laughed.

" ' It is so nominated in the bond.' The

cabin is over there— some twenty miles.' ' He

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pointed off across the farthest dim ridge to the

south. " It is among hills where — but to-mor-

row you shall see for yourself ! "

" To-morrow ?" There was a touch of anx-

ious haste in the inquiry.

" Are you so impatient? " smiled Steele.

Saxon wheeled on his host, and on his fore-

head were beads of perspiration though the

breeze across the hilltops was fresh with the

coming of evening. His answer broke from

his lips with the abruptness of an exclamation.

" My God, man, I'm in panic! "

The Kentuckian looked up in surprise, and

his bantering smile vanished. Evidently, he

was talking with a man who was suffering some

stress of emotion, and that man was his friend.

For a moment, Saxon stood rigidly, looking

away with drawn brow, then he began with a

short laugh in which there was no vestige of

mirth:

" When two men meet and find themselves

congenial companions," he said slowly, " there

need be no questions asked. We met in a

Mexican hut."

Steele nodded.

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"Then," went on Saxon, "we discovered a

common love of painting. That was enough,

wasn't it?"

Steele again bowed his assent.

" Very well." The greater painter spoke with'

the painfully slow control of one who has taken

himself in hand, selecting tone and words to

safeguard against any betrayal into sudden out-

burst. "As long as it's merely you and I,

George, we know enough of each other. When

it becomes a matter of meeting your friends,

your own people, you force me to tell you some-

thing more."

"Why?" Steele demanded, almost hotly. " I

don't ask my friends for references or bonds! "

Saxon smiled, but persistently repeated:

" You met me in Mexico, seven months ago.

What, in God's name, do you know about me? "

The other looked up, surprised.

"Why, I know," he said, "I know "

Then, suddenly wondering what he did know,

he stopped, and added lamely: "I know that

you are a landscape-painter of national reputa-

tion and a damned good fellow."

"And, aside from that, nothing," came the

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quick response. "What I am on the side,

preacher, porch-climber, bank-robber — what-

ever else, you don't know." The speaker's-

voice was hard.

" What do you mean? "

" I mean that, before you present me to your

friends, to such people for example — well such

people as I met to-day — you have the right to

ask; and the unfortunate part of it is that, when

you ask, I can't answer."

11 You mean " the Kentuckian halted in

perplexed silence.

" I mean," said Saxon, forcing his words,

" that God Almighty only knows who I am, or

where I came from. I don't."

Of all the men Steele had ever known, Saxon

had struck him, through months of intimacy,

as the most normal, sane and cleanly consti-

tuted. Eccentricity was alien to him. In the

same measure that all his physical bents were

straight and clean-cut, so he had been mentally

a contradiction of the morbid and irrational.

The Kentuckian waited in open-eyed astonish-

ment, gazing at the man whose own words had

just convicted him of the wildest insanity.

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

Saxon went on, and even now, in the face

of self-conviction of lunacy, his words fell coldly-

logical :

" I have talked to you of my work and my

travels during the past five or six years. I

have told you that I was a cow-puncher on a

Western range; that I drifted East, and took

up art. Did I ever tell you one word of my life

prior to that? Do you know of a single epi-

sode or instance preceding these few fragmen-

tary chapters? Do you know who, or what I

was seven years ago?"

Steele was dazed. His eyes were studiously

fixed on the gnarled roots and twisted bole

of a scrub oak that hung out over the edge of

things with stubborn and distorted tenacity.

"No," he heard the other say, "you don't,

and I don't."

Again, there was a pause. The sun was set-

ting at their backs, but off to the east the hills

were bright in the reflection that the western

sky threw across the circle of the horizon. Al-

ready, somewhere below them, a prematurely

tuneful whippoorwill was sending out its night

call.

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

Steele looked up, and saw the throat of the

other work convulsively, though the lips grimly

held the set, contradictory smile.

"The very name I wear is the name, not of

my family, but of my race. R. A. Saxon,

Robert Anglo Saxon or Robert Anonymous

Saxon — take your choice. I took that because

I felt that I was not stealing it."

" Go on," prompted Steele.

" You have heard of those strange practical

jokes which Nature sometimes — not often, only

when she is preternaturally cruel — plays on

men. They have pathological names for it, I

believe — loss of memory?"

Steele only nodded.

" I told you that I rode the range on the

Anchor-cross outfit. I did not tell you why.

It was because the Anchor-cross took me in

when I was a man without identity. I don't

know why I was in the Rocky Mountains. I

don't know what occurred there, but I do know

that I was picked up in a pass with a fractured

skull. I had been stripped almost naked.

Nothing was left as a clew to identity, except

this "

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

Saxon handed the other a rusty key, evidently

fitting an old-fashioned lock.

" I always carry that with me. I don't know

where it will fit a door, or what lies behind that

door. I only know that it is in a fashion the

key that can open my past; that the lock which

it fits bars me off from all my life except a frag-

ment."

Steele mechanically returned the thing, and

Saxon mechanically slipped it back into his

pocket.

" I know, too, that a scar I wear on my right

hand was not fresh when those many others

were. That, also, belongs to the veiled years.

" Some cell of memory was pressed upon by

a splinter of bone, some microscopic atom of

brain-tissue was disturbed — and life was

erased. I was an interesting medical subject,

and was taken to specialists who tried methods

of suggestion. Men talked to me of various

sonal things gradually retrieved themselves, but,

the reminder never came. Sometimes, it would

seem that I was standing on the verge of great

recollections — recollections just back of con-

sciousness — as a forgotten name will sometimes

3 1

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

tease the brain by almost presenting itself yet

remaining elusive."

Steele was leaning forward, listening while

the narrator talked on with nervous haste.

" I have never told this before," Saxon said.

" Slowly, the things I had known seemed to

come back. For example, I did not have to re-

learn to read and write. All the purely imper-

sonal things gradually retrieved themselves, but,

wherever a fact might have a tentacle which

could grasp the personal — the ego — that fact

eluded me."

"How did you drift into art?" demanded

Steele.

"That is it: I drifted into it. I had to

drift. I had no compass, no port of departure

or destination. I was a derelict without a flag

or name.

" At the Cincinnati Academy, where I first

studied, one of the instructors gave me a hint.

He felt that I was struggling for something

which did not lie the way of his teaching. By

that time, I had acquired some little efficiency

and local reputation. He told me that Mar-

ston was the master for me to study, and he

3 2

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

advised me to go further East where I could see

and understand his work. I came, and saw,

* The Sunset in Winter.' You know the rest."

" But, now," Steele found himself speaking

with a sense of relief, " now, you are Robert

A. Saxon. You have made yourself from un-

known material, but you have made yourself

a great painter. Why not be satisfied to aban-

don this unknown past as the past has aban-

doned you? "

" Wait," the other objected, with the cold

emphasis of a man who will not evade, or seek

refuge in specious alternatives.

" Forget to-night who I am, and to-morrow

I shall have no assurance that the police are

not searching for me. Why, man, I may have

been a criminal. I have no way of knowing. I

am hand-tied. Possibly, I have a wife and fam-

ily waiting for me somewhere — needing me ! "

His breath came in agitated gasps.

" I am two men, and one of them does not

know the other. Sometimes, it threatens me

with madness — sometimes, for a happy interval,

I almost forget it. At first, it was insupport-

able, but the vastness of the prairie and the

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

calm of the mountain seemed to soothe me into

sanity, and give me a grip on myself. The star-

light in my face during nights spent in the sad-

dle — that was soothing; it was medicine for my

sick brain. These things at least made me

physically perfect. But, since yesterday is

sealed, I must remain to some extent the re-

cluse. The sort of intercourse we call society

I have barred. That is why I am anxious for

your cabin, rather than your clubs and your

entertainments."

"You didn't have to tell me," said Steele

slowly, "but I'm glad you did. I and my

friends are willing to gauge your past by your

present. But I'm glad of your confidence."

Saxon raised his face, and his eyes wore an

expression of gratification.

"Yes, I'm glad I told you. If I should go

out before I solve it, and you should ever

chance on the answer, I'd like my own name

over me — and both dates, birth as well as

death. My work is, of course, to learn it all —

if I can; and I hope — " he forced a laugh —

" when I meet the other man, he will be fit to

shake hands with."

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

" Listen," Steele spoke eagerly. " How long

has it been?"

" Over six years."

"Then, why not go on and round out the

seven? Seven years of absolute disappearance

gives a man legal death. Let the old problem

lie, and go forward as Robert Saxon. That is

the simplest way."

The other shook his head.

" That would be an evasion. It would prove

nothing. If I discover responsibilities surviv-

ing from the past, I must take them up."

"What did the physicians say?"

" They didn't know." Saxon shook his head.

" Perhaps, some strong reminder may at some

unwarned moment open the volume where it

was closed; perhaps, it will never open. To-

morrow morning, I may awaken Robert Saxon

• — or the other man." He paused, then added

quietly: " Such an unplaced personality had best

touch other lives as lightly as it can."

Steele went silently over, and cranked the ma-

chine. As he straightened up, he asked ab-

ruptly :

"Would you prefer calling off this dinner?"

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

11 No." The artist laughed. " We will take

a chance on my remaining myself until after

dinner, but as soon as convenient "

"To-morrow," promised Steele, "we go to

the cabin."

3«

CHAPTER III

Perhaps, the same futile vanity that led

Mr. Bellton to import the latest sartorial novel-

ties from the Rue de la Paix for the adornment

of his person made him fond of providing for-

eign notables to give color to his entertainments.

Mr. Bellton was at heart the poseur, but he

was also the fighter. Even when he carried

the war of political reform into sections of the

town where the lawless elements had marked

him for violence, he went stubbornly in the

conspicuousness of ultra-tailoring. Though he

loved to address the proletariat in the name of

brotherhood, he loved with a deeper passion the

exclusiveness of presiding as host at a board

where his guests included the "best people. "

Senor Ribero, who at home used the more

ear-filling entitlement of Senor Don Ricardo de

Ribero y Pierola, was hardly a notable, yet he

was a new type, and, even before the ladies had

emerged from their cloak-room and while the

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

men were apart in the grill, the host felt that

he had secured a successful ingredient for his

mixture of personal elements.

After the fashion of Latin-American diplo-

macy, educated in Paris and polished by great

latitude of travel, the attache had the art of

small talk and the charm of story-telling. To

these recommendations, he added a slender, al-

most military carriage, and the distinction of

Castilian features.

A punctured tire had interrupted the home-

ward journey of Steele and Saxon, who had

telephoned to beg that the dinner go on, with-

out permitting their tardiness to delay the more

punctual.

The table was spread in a front room with

a balcony that gave an outlook across the broad

lawn and the ancient trees which bordered the

sidewalk. At the open windows, the May air

that stirred the curtains was warm enough to

suggest summer, and new enough after the

lately banished winter to seem wonderful — as

though the rebirth of nature had wrought its

miracle for the first time.

Ribero was the only guest who needed pres-

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

entation, and, as he bowed over the hand of

each woman, it was with an almost ornate cere-

moniousness of manner.

Duska Filson, after the spontaneous system

of her opinions and prejudices, disliked the

South American. To her imaginative mind,

there was something in his jetlike darkness and

his quick, almost tigerish movements that sug-

gested the satanic. But, if the impression she

received was not flattering to the guest, the im-

pression she made was evidently profound.

Ribero glanced at her with an expression of

extreme admiration, and dropped his dark

lashes as though he would veil eyes from which

he could not hope to banish flattery too ful-

some for new acquaintanceship.

The girl found herself seated with the diplo-

mat at her right, and a vacant chair at her

left. The second vacant seat was across the

round table, and she found herself sensible of

a feeling of quarantine with an uncongenial

companion, and wondering who would fill the

empty space at her left. The name on the

place card was hidden. .She rather hoped it

would be Saxon. She meant to ask him why

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

he did not break away from the Marston in-

fluence that handicapped his career, and she

believed he would entertain her. Of course,

George Steele was an old friend and a very dear

one, but this was just the point: he was not

satisfied with that, and in the guise of lovers

only did she ever find men uninteresting. It

would, however, be better to have George make

love than to be forced to talk to this somewhat

pompous foreigner.

" I just met and made obeisance to the new

Mrs. Billie Bedford," declared Mr. Bellton,

starting the conversational ball rolling along the

well-worn groove of gossip. " And, if she

needs a witness, she may call on me to testify

that she's as radiant in the part of Mrs. Billie

as she was in her former role of Mrs. Jack."

Miss Buford raised her large eyes. With

a winter's popularity behind her, she felt ag-

grieved to hear mentioned names that she did

not know. Surely, she had met everybody.

"Who is Mrs. Fedford?" she demanded.

" I don't think I have ever met her. Is she

a widow?"

Bellton laughed across his consomme cup.

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

" Of the modern school," he enlightened.

"There were 'no funeral baked meats to fur-

nish forth the marriage feast.' Matrimonially

speaking, this charming lady plays in reper-

toire.' ,

"What has become of Jack Spotswood?"

The older Miss Preston glanced up inquiringly.

" He used to be everywhere, and I haven't

heard of him for ages."

" He's still everywhere," responded Mr.

Bellton, with energy; "everywhere but here.

You see, the papers were so busy with Jack's

affairs that they crowded Jack out of his own

life." Mr. Bellton smiled as he added: "And

so he went away."

" I wonder where he is now. He wasn't such

a bad sort," testified Mr. Cleaver, solemnly.

" Jack's worse portion was his better half."

"Last heard," informed Mr. Bellton, "he

was seen in some town in South America — the

name of which I forget."

Senor Ribero had no passport of familiarity

into local personalities, and he occupied the

moment of his own conversational disengage-

ment in a covert study of the face and figure

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

beside him. Just now, the girl was looking

away at the indolently stirring curtains with

an expression of detachment. Flippant gossip

was distasteful to her, and, when the current set

that way, she drew aside, and became the non-

participant.

Ribero read rightly the bored expression, and

resolved that the topic must be diverted, if Miss

Filson so wished.

" One meets so many of your countrymen

in South America, " he suggested, " that one

might reasonably expect them to lose interest

as types, yet each of them seems to be the center

of some gripping interest. I remember in par-

ticular one episode — "

The recital was cut short by the entrance of

Steele and Saxon. Ribero, the only person

present requiring introduction, rose to shake

hands.

The attache was trained in diplomacy, and the

rudiments of diplomacy should teach the face

to become a mask when need be, yet, as his eyes

met those of Saxon, he suddenly and involun-

tarily stiffened. For just a moment, his out-

stretched hand hesitated with the impulse to

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

draw back. The lips that had parted in a cas-

ual smile hardened rigidly, and the eyes that

rested on the face of Steele's celebrity were so

intently focused that they almost stared. The

byplay occupied only a moment, and, as Ribero

had half-turned from the table to greet those

entering at his back, it escaped the notice of

everyone except Saxon himself. The newcomer

felt the momentary bar of hostility that had

been thrown between them and as quickly with-

drawn. The next moment, he was shaking the

extended hand, and hearing the commonplace:

" Much pleased, sefior."

Ribero felt a momentary flash of shame for

the betrayal of such undiplomatic surprise, and

made amends with added courtesy when he

spoke.

The artist, dropping into his seat at the side

of Miss Filson, felt a flush of pleasure at his

position. For the instant, the other man's con-

duct became a matter of negligible importance,

and, when she turned to him with a friendly

nod and smile, he forgot Ribero's existence.

"Mr. Ribero," announced Mr. Bellton,

"was just about to tell us an interesting story

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY,

when you two delinquents came in. I'm sure

he still has the floor."

The diplomat had forgotten what he had

been saying. He was covertly studying the

features of the man just beyond Miss Filson.

The face was turned toward the girl, giving him

a full view, and it was a steady, imperturbable

face. Now, introduced as raconteur, he real-

ized that he must say something, and at the

moment, with a flash of inspiration, he deter-

mined to relate a bit of history that would

be of interest at least to the narrator. It was

not at all the story he might have told had

he been uninterrupted, but it was a story that

appealed to his diplomatic taste, because he

could watch the other face as he told it and see

what the other face might betray. This new-

comer had jarred him from his usual poise.

Now, he fancied it was the other's turn to be

startled.

" It was," he said casually, " the narrowest

escape from death that I have seen — and the

man who escaped was an American."

As Saxon raised his eyes, with polite interest,

to those of the speaker, he became aware that

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

they held for him a message of almost sardonic

challenge. He felt that the story-teller was

only ostensibly addressing the table; that the

man was talking at him, as a prosecutor talks

at the defendant though he may direct himself

to the jury. The sense that brought this reali-

zation was perhaps telepathic. To the other

eyes and ears, there were only the manner of

the raconteur and the impersonal tone of gen-

erality.

" It occurred in Puerto Frio," said the South

American, reminiscently. He paused for a mo-

ment, and smiled at Saxon, as though expecting

a sign of confusion upon the mention of the

name, but he read only courteous interest and

impenetrability.

"This countryman of yours," he went on

smoothly, his English touched and softened by

the accent of the foreigner, " had indulged in

the dangerous, though it would seem alluring,

pastime of promoting a revolution. Despite

his unscrupulous character, he was possessed of

an engaging personality, and, on brief acquaint-

ance, I, for one, liked him. His skill and luck

held good so long that it was only when the

451

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

insurgents were at the gates of the capital that

a summary court-martial gave him the verdict

of death. I have no doubt that by the laws

of war it was a just award, yet so many men

are guilty of peddling revolutions, and the de-

mand for such wares is so great in some quar-

ters, that he had my sympathy." The speaker

bowed slightly, as though conceding a point to

a gallant adversary. It chanced that he was

looking directly at Saxon as he bowed.

The painter became suddenly conscious that

he was according an engrossed attention, and

that the story-teller was narrowly watching his

fingers as they twisted the stem of his sauterne

glass. The fingers became at once motionless.

" He bore himself so undeniably well when

he went out to his place against a blank wall

in the plaza, escorted by the firing squad," pro-

ceeded Senor Ribero evenly, " that one could

not withhold admiration. The picture remains

with me. The sun on the yellow cathedral

wall ... a vine heavy with scarlet blossoms

like splashes of blood . . . and twenty paces

away the firing squad with their Mausers."

Once more, the speaker broke off, as though

4 6

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

lost in retrospection of something well-remem-

bered. Beyond the girl's absorbed gaze, he

saw that of the painter, and his dark eyes for

an instant glittered with something like direct

accusation.

" As they arranged the final details, he must

have reflected somewhat grimly on the irony

of things, for at that very moment he could

hear the staccato popping of the guns he had

smuggled past the vigilance of the customs.

The sound was coming nearer — telling him

that in a half-hour his friends would be victori-

ous — too late to save him."

As Ribero paused, little Miss Buford, leaning

forward across the table, gave a sort of gasp.

" He was tall, athletic, gray-eyed," an-

nounced the attache irrelevantly; "in his eyes

dwelt something of the spirit of the dreamer.

He never faltered."

The speaker lifted his sauterne glass to his

lips, and sipped the wine deliberately.

" The teniente in command inquired if he

wished to pray," Ribero added then, "but he

shook his head almost savagely. ' No, damn

you ! ' he snapped out, as though he were in a

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

hurry about it all. * Go on with your rat-

killing. Let's have it over with. 1 "

The raconteur halted in his narrative.

" Please go on," begged Duska, in a low

voice. "What happened?"

The foreigner smiled.

" They fired." Then, as he saw the slight

shudder of Duska's white shoulder, he sup-

plemented: u But each soldier had left the

task for the others. . . . Possibly, they

sympathized with him; possibly, they sym-

pathized with the revolution; possibly, each

of the six secretly calculated that the other

five would be sufficient. Omen sabef At all

events, he fell only slightly wounded. One

bullet — " he spoke thoughtfully, letting his eyes

drop from Saxon's face to the table-cloth where

Saxon's right hand lay — " one bullet pierced

his right hand from back to front."

Then, a half-whimsical smile crossed Ribero's

somewhat saturnine features, for Miss Filson

had dropped her napkin on Saxon's side, and,

when the painter had stooped to recover it, he

did not again replace the hand on the table.

" Before he could be fired on a second

4 8

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

time," concluded the diplomat with a shrug,

" a new presidente was on his way to the pal-

ace. Your countryman was saved."

If the hero of Ribero's narrative was a male-

factor, at least he was a malefactor with the

sympathy of Mr. Bellton's dinner-party, as was

attested by a distinctly audible sigh of relief

at the end of the story. But Senor Ribero was

not quite through.

" It is not, after all, the story that discredits

your countryman, " he explained, " but the se-

quel. Of course, he became powerful in the

new regime. It was when he was lauded as a

national hero that his high fortunes intoxicated

him, and success rotted his moral fiber. Event-

ually, he embezzled a fortune from the govern-

ment which he had assisted to establish. There

was also a matter of — how shall I say? — of a

lady. Then, a duel which was really an assas-

sination. He escaped with blood on his con-

science, presumably to enjoy his stolen wealth

in his own land.

" I have often wondered/' pursued Ribero,

"whether, if that man and I should ever be

thrown together again, he would know me . . .

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

and I have often wished I could remember him

only as the brave adventurer — not also as the

criminal."

As he finished, the speaker was holding Saxon

with his eyes, and had a question in his glance

that seemed to call for some expression from

the other. Saxon bowed with a smile.

" It is an engrossing story."

" I think," said Duska suddenly, almost critic-

ally, " the first part was so good that it was a

pity to spoil it with the rest."

Sefior Ribero smiled enigmatically into his

wine-glass.

" I fear, sefiorita, that is the sad difference

between fiction and history. My tale is a true

one."

"At all events," continued the girl with

vigor, " he was a brave man. That is enough

to remember. I think it is better to forget the

rest."

It seemed to Ribero that the glance Saxon

flashed on her was almost the glance of grati-

tude.

"What was his name?" she suddenly de-

manded.

5.o

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

" He called himself — at that time — George

Carter," Ribero said slowly, " but gentlemen

in the unrecognized pursuits quite frequently

have occasion to change their names. Now, it

is probably something else."

After the dinner had ended, while the guests

fell into groups or waited for belated carriages,

Saxon found himself standing apart, near the

window. It was open on the balcony, and the

man felt a sudden wish for the quiet freshness

of the outer air on his forehead. He drew

back the curtain, and stepped across the low sill,

then halted as he realized that he was not

alone.

The sputtering arc-light swinging over the

street made the intervening branches and leaves

of the sidewalk sycamores stand out starkly

black, like a ragged drop hung over a stage.

The May moon was only a thin sickle, and

the other figure on the darkly shadowed balcony

was vaguely defined, but Saxon at once recog-

nized, in its lithe slenderness and grace of pose,

Miss Filson.

" I didn't mean to intrude," he hastily apolo-

gized. " I didn't know you were here."

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

She laughed. " Would that have frightened

you ? " she asked.

She was leaning on the iron rail, and the man

took his place at her side.

" I came with the Longmores," she explained,

" and their machine hasn't come yet. It's cool

here — and I was thinking — "

" You weren't by any chance thinking of

Babylon?" he laughed, " or Macedonia?"

She shook her head. "Mr. Ribero's story

sticks in my mind. It was so personal, and

— I guess I'm a moody creature. Anyway, I

find myself thinking of it."

There was silence for a space, except for the

laughter that floated up from, the verandah be-

low them, where a few of the members sat

smoking, and the softened clicking of ivory

from the open windows of the billiard-room.

The painter's ringers, resting on the iron rail,

closed over a tendril of clambering moon-flower

vine, and nervously twisted the stem.

With an impulsive movement, he leaned for-

ward. His voice was eager.

" Suppose," he questioned, " suppose you

knew such a man — can you imagine any circum-

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

stances under which you could make excuses

for him ?"

She stood a moment weighing the problem.

" It's a hard question," she replied finally, then

added impulsively: " Do you know, I'm afraid

I'm a terrible heathen? I can excuse so much

where there is courage — the cold sort of chilled-

steel courage that he had. What do you

think?"

The painter drew his handkerchief from his

pocket, and wiped his moist forehead, but, be-

fore he could frame his answer, the girl heard

a movement in the room, and turned lightly to

join her chaperon.

Following her, Saxon found himself saying

good-night to a group that included Ribero.

As the attache shook hands, he held Saxon's

somewhat longer than necessary, seeming to

glance at a ring, but really studying a scar.

"You are a good story-teller, Mr. Ribero,"

said Saxon, quietly.

"Ah," countered the other quickly, "but

that is easy, senor, where one has so good a

listener. By the way, seiior, did you ever

chance to visit Puerto Frio?"

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

The painter shook his head.

" Not unless in some other life — some life

as dead as that of the pharaohs."

" Ah, well — " the diplomat turned away, still

smiling — "some of the pharaohs are remarka-

bly well preserved."

CHAPTER IV

Steele himself had not been a failure at

his art. There was in him no want of that

sensitive temperament and dream-fire which

gives the artist, like the prophet, a better

sight and deeper appreciation than is accorded

the generality. The only note missing was the

necessity for hard application, which might

have made him the master where he was sat-

isfied to be the dilettante. The extreme clev-

erness of his brush had at the outset been his

handicap, lulling the hard sincerity of effort

with too facile results. Wealth, too, had

drugged his energies, but had not crippled his

abilities. If he drifted, it was because drift-

ing in smooth seas is harmless and pleasant, not

because he was unseaworthy or fearful of

stormier conditions. In Saxon, he had not only

recognized a greater genius, but found a friend,

and with the insouciance of a graceful philos-

ophy he reasoned it out to his own content-

ment. Each craft after its own uses! Saxon

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

was meant for a greater commerce. His gen-

ius was intended to be an argosy, bearing rich

cargo between the ports of the gods and those

of men. If, in the fulfillment of that destiny,

the shallop of his own lesser talent and influ-

ence might act as convoy and guide, luring

the greater craft into wider voyaging, he

would be satisfied. Just now, that guidance

ought to be away from the Marston influence

where lay ultimate danger and limitation. He

was glad that where people discussed Freder-

ick Marston thev also discussed his foremost

disciple. Marston himself had loomed large

in the star-chart of painting only a dozen years

ago, and was now the greatest of luminaries.

His follower had been known less than half

that long. If he were to surpass the man he

was now content to follow, he must break away

from Marston-worship and let his maturer ef-

forts be his own — his ultimate style his own.

Prophets and artists have from the beginning

of time arisen from second place to a preem-

inent first — pupils have surpassed their teach-

ers. He had hoped that these months in a

new type of country and landscape would

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

slowly, almost insensibly, wean Saxon away

from the influence that had made his great-

ness and now in turn threatened to limit its

scope.

The cabin to which he brought his guest was

itself a reflection of Steele's whim. Fash-

ioned by its original and unimaginative build-

ers only as a shelter, with no thought of ap-

pearances, it remained, with its dark logs and

white " chinking," a thing of picturesque

beauty. Its generous stone chimneys and wide

hearths were reminders of the ancient days.

Across its shingled roof, the sunlight was spot-

ted with shadows thrown down from beeches

and oaks that had been old when the Indian

held the country and the buffalo gathered at

the salt licks. Vines of honeysuckle and morn-

ing-glory had partly preempted the walls. In-

side was the odd mingling of artistic junk that

characterizes the den of the painter.

Saxon's enthusiasm had been growing that

morning since the automobile had left the city

behind and pointed its course toward the line

of knobs. The twenty-mile run had been a

panorama sparkling with the life of color, tem-

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

pered with tones of richness and soft with

haunting splendor. Forest trees, ancient as

Druids, were playing at being young in the al-

most shrill greens of their leafage. There were

youth and opulence in the way they filtered

the sun through their gnarled branches with a

splattering and splashing of golden light.

Blossoming dogwood spread clusters of white

amid endless shades and conditions of green,

and, when the view was not focused into the

thickness of woodland interiors, it offered

leagues of yellow fields and tender meadows

stretching off to soberer woods in the distance.

Back of all that were the hills, going up from

the joyous sparkle of the middle distance to

veiled purple where they met the bluest of

skies. Saxon's fingers had been tingling for a

brush to hold and his lids had been uncon-

sciously dropping, that his eyes might appraise

the colors in simplified tones and values.

At last, they had ensconced themselves, and

a little later Saxon emerged from the cabin

disreputably clad in a flannel shirt and briar-

torn, paint-spotted trousers. In his teeth, he

clamped a battered briar pipe, and in his hand

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

he carried an equally battered sketching-easel

and paint-box.

Steele, smoking a cigar in a hammock, looked

up from an art journal at the sound of a foot-

step on the boards.

"Did you see this?" he inquired, holding

out the magazine. " It would appear that

your eccentric demi-god is painting in Southern

Spain. He continues to remain the recluse,

avoiding the public gaze. His genius seems

to be of the shrinking type. Here's his latest

sensation as it looks to the camera."

Saxon took the magazine, and studied the

half-tone reproduction.

" His miracle is his color," announced the

first disciple, briefly. "The black and white

gives no idea. As to his personality, it seems

to be that of the poseur — almost of the snob.

His very penchant for frequent wanderings in-

cognito and revealing himself only through his

work is in itself a bid for publicity. He arro-

gates to himself the attributes of traveling

royalty. For my master as the man, I have

small patience. It's the same affectation that

causes him to sign nothing. The arrogant

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

confidence that no one can counterfeit his

stroke, that signature is superfluous."

Steele laughed.

" Why not show him that some one can do

it?" he suggested. "Why not send over an

unsigned canvas as a Marston, and drag him

out of his hiding place to assert himself and

denounce the impostor?"

" Let him have his vanities," Saxon said,

almost contemptuously. " So long as the world

has his art, what does it matter?" He turned

and stepped from the low porch, whistling as

he went.

The stranger strolled along with a free

stride and confident bearing, tempted by each

vista, yet always lured on by other vistas be-

yond.

At last, he halted near a cluster of huge

boulders. Below him, the creek reflected in

rippled counterpart the shimmer of overhang-

ing greenery. Out of a tangle of undergrowth

beyond reared two slender poplars. The mid-

dle distance was bright with young barley, and

in the background stretched the hills in misty

purple.

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

There, he set up his easel, and, while his eyes

wandered, his lingers were selecting the color

tubes with the deft accuracy of the pianist's

touch on the keys.

For a time, he saw only the thing he was to

paint; then, there rose before his eyes the face

of a girl, and beyond it the sinister visage of

the South American. His brow darkened. Al-

ways, there had lurked in the background of

his thoughts a specter, some Nemesis who

might at any moment come forward, bearing

black reminders — possible accusations. At last,

it seemed the specter had come out of the

shadow, and taken the center of the stage, and

in the spotlight he wore the features of Senor

Ribero. He had intended questioning Ribero,

but had hesitated. The thing had been sud-

den, and it is humiliating to go to a man one

has never met before to learn something of

one's self, when that man has assumed an atti-

tude almost brutally hostile from the outset.

The method must first be considered, and, when

early that morning he had inquired about the

diplomat, it had been to learn that a night train

had taken the man to his legation in Wash-

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

ington. He must give the problem in its new

guise reflection, and, meanwhile, he must live in

the shadow of its possible tragedy.

There was no element of the coward's pro-

crastination in Saxon's thoughts. Even his

own speculation as to what the other man

might have been, had never suggested the pos-

sibility that he was a craven.

He held up his hand, and studied the scar.

The bared forearm, under the uprolled sleeve,

was as brown and steady as a sculptor's work

in bronze.

Suddenly, he heard a laugh at his back, a

tuneful laugh like a trill struck from a xylo-

phone, and came to his feet with a realization

of a blue gingham dress, a girlish figure, a sun-

bonnet and a huge cluster of dogwood blos-

soms. The sunbonnet and dogwood branches

seemed conspiring to hide all the face except

the violet eyes that looked out from them.

Near by stood a fox terrier, silently and alertly

regarding him, its head cocked jauntily to the

side.

But, even before she had lowered the dog-

wood blossoms enough to reveal her face, the

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

lancelike uprightness of her carnage brought

recognition and astonishment.

" Do you mind my staring at you?" she de-

manded, innocently. " Isn't turn-about fair

play?"

" But, Miss Filson," he stammered, " I — I

thought you lived in town ! "

" Then, George didn't tell you that we were

to be the closest sort of neighbors?" The

merriment of her laugh was spontaneous. She

did not confide to Saxon just why Steele's si-

lence struck her as highly humorous. She

knew, however, that the place had originally

recommended itself to its purchaser by reason

of just that exact circumstance — its proximity.

The man took a hasty step forward, and

spoke with the brusqueness of a cross-examiner:

" No. Why didn't he tell me? He should

have told me! He — " He halted abruptly,

conscious that his manner was one of resent-

ment for being led, unwarned, into displeas-

ing surroundings, which was not at all what

he meant. Then, as the radiant smile on the

girl's face — the smile such as a very little girl

might have worn in the delight of perpetrating

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

an innocent surprise — suddenly faded into a

pained wonderment, he realized the depth of

his crudeness. Of course, she could not know

that he had come there to run away, to seek

asylum. She could not guess, that, in the iso-

lation of such a life as his uncertainty entailed,

associates like herself were the most hazard-

ous; that, because she seemed to him altogether

wonderful, he distrusted his power to quaran-

tine his heart against her artless magnetism.

As he stood abashed at his own crassness, he

wanted to tell her that he developed these

crude strains only when he was thrown into

touch with so fine grained a nature as her own;

that it was the very sense of his own pariah-

like circumstance. Then, before she had time

to speak, came a swift artistic leaping at his

heart. He should have known that she would

be here ! It was her rightful environment !

She belonged as inherently under blossoming

dogwood branches as the stars belong beyond

the taint of earth-smoke. She was a dryad,

and these were her woods. After all, how

could it matter? He had run away bravely.

Now, she was here also, and the burden of re-

6 4

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

sponsibility might rest on the woodsprites or

the gods or his horoscope or wherever it be-

longed. As for himself, he would enjoy the

present. The future was with destiny. Of

course, friendship is safe so long as love is

barred, and of course it would be only friend-

ship ! Does the sun shine anywhere on trel-

lised vines with a more golden light than where

the slopes of Vesuvius bask just below the

smoking sands? He, too, would enjoy the radi-

ance, and risk the crater.

She stood, not angry, but a trifle bewildered,

a trifle proud in her attitude of uptilted chin.

In all her little autocratic world, her gracious

friendliness had never before met anything so

like rebuff.

Then, having resolved, the man felt an al-

most boyish reaction to light-hearted gayety.

It was much the same gay abandonment that

comes to a man who, having faced ruin until

his heart and brain are sick, suddenly decides

to squander in extravagant and riotous pleas-

ure the few dollars left in his pocket.

" Of course, George should have told me,"

he declared. " Why, Miss Filson, I come

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

from the world where things are commonplace,

and here it all seems a sequence of wonders:

this glorious country, the miracle of meeting

you again — after — " he paused, then smilingly

added — " after Babylon and Mecedonia."

" From the way you greeted me," she

naively observed, " one might have fancied

that you'd been running away ever since we

parted in Babylon and Macedon. You must

be very tired."

" I am afraid of you," he avowed.

She laughed.

" I know you are a woman-hater. But I

was a boy myself until I was seventeen. I've

never quite got used to being a woman, so you

needn't mind."

" Miss Filson," he hazarded gravely, " when

I saw you yesterday, I wanted to be friends

with you so much that — that I ran away.

Some day, I'll tell you why."

For a moment, she looked at him with a puz-

zled interest. The light of a smile dies slowly

from most faces. It went out of his eyes as

suddenly as an electric bulb switched off, leav-

ing the features those of a much older man.

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

She caught the look, and in her wisdom said

nothing — but wondered what he meant.

Her eyes fell on the empty canvas. " How

did you happen to begin art?" she inquired.

"Did you always feel it calling you?"

He shook his! head, then the smile came back.

11 A freezing cow started me," he announced.

" A what? " Her eyes were once more puz-

zled.

" You see," he elucidated, " I was a cow-

puncher in Montana, without money. One

winter, the snow covered the prairies so long

that the cattle were starving at their grazing

places. Usually, the breeze from the Japan-

ese current blows off the snow from time to

time, and we can graze the steers all winter on

the range. This time, the Japanese current

seemed to have been switched off, and they

were dying on the snow-bound pastures."

" Yes," she prompted. " But how did

that—?"

" You see," he went on, "the boss wrote

from Helena to know how things were going.

I drew a picture of a freezing, starving cow,

and wrote back, ' This is how.' The boss

6 7

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

showed that picture around, and some folk

thought it bore so much family resemblance to

a starving cow that on the strength of it they

gambled on me. They staked me to an edu-

cation in illustrating and painting."

"And you made good!" she concluded, en-

thusiastically.

" I hope to make good," he smiled.

After a pause, she said :

" If you were not busy, I'd guide you to

some places along the creek where there are

wonderful things to see."

The man reached for his discarded hat.

" Take me there," he begged.

"Where?" she demanded. "I spoke of

several places."

"To any of them," he promptly replied;

"better yet, to all of them."

She shook her head dubiously.

" I ought not to begin as an interruption,"

she demurred.

" On the contrary," he argued confidently,

" the good general first acquaints himself with

his field."

An hour later, standing at a gap in a tangle

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of briar, where the paw-paw trees grew thick,

he watched her crossing the meadow toward

the roof of her house which topped the foliage

not far away. Then, he held up his right hand,

and scrutinized the scar, almost invisible under

the tan. It seemed to him to grow larger as

he looked.

6 9

CHAPTER V

Horton House, where Duska Filson made

her home with her aunt and uncle, was a half-

mile from the cabin in which the two painters

were lodged. That was the distance reckoned

via driveway and turnpike, but a path, linking

the houses, reduced it to a quarter of a mile.

This " air line," as Steele dubbed it, led from

the hill where the cabin perched, through a

blackberry thicket and paw-paw grove, across

a meadow, and then entered, by a picket gate

and rose-cumbered fence, the old-fashioned

garden of the " big house."

Before the men had been long at their sum-

mer place, the path had become as well worn

as neighborly paths should be. To the gra-

cious household at Horton House, they were

" the boys." Steele had been on lifelong

terms of intimacy, and the guest was at once

taken into the family on the same basis as the

host.

11 Horton House " was a temple dedicated

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

to hospitality. Mrs. Horton, its delightful

mistress, occasionally smiled at the somewhat

pretentious name, but it had been " Horton

House " when the Nashville stage rumbled

along the turnpike, and the picturesque little

village of brick and stone at its back had been

the " quarters " for the slaves. It would no

more do to rechristen it than to banish the ri-

pened old family portraits, or replace the silver-

laden mahogany sideboard with less antique

things. The house had been added to from

time to time, until it sprawled a commodious

and composite record of various eras, but the

name and spirit stood the same.

Saxon began to feel that he had never lived

before. His life, in so far as he could remem-

ber it, had been varied, but always touched

with isolation. Now, in a family not his own,

he was finding the things which had hitherto

been only names to him and that richness of

congenial companionship which differentiates

life from existence. While he felt the wine-

like warmth of it in his heart, he felt its seduc-

tiveness in his brain. The thought of its

ephemeral quality brought him moments of de-

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

pression that drove him stalking away alone

into the hills to fight things out with himself.

At times, his canvases took on a new glow;

at times, he told himself he was painting daubs.

About a week after their arrival, Mrs. Hor-

ton and Miss Filson came over to inspect the

quarters and to see whether bachelor efforts

had made the place habitable.

Duska was as delighted as a child among

new toys. Her eyes grew luminous with

pleasure as she stood in the living-room of the

" shack " and surveyed the confusion of can-

vases, charcoal sketches and studio parapher-

nalia that littered its walls and floor. Saxon

had hung his canvases in galleries where the

juries were accounted sternly critical; he had

heard the commendation of brother artists gen-

erously admitting his precedence. Now, he

found himself almost flutteringly anxious to hear

from her lips the pronouncement, " Well done."

Mrs. Horton, meanwhile, was sternly and

beneficently inspecting the premises from liv-

ing-room to pantry, with Steele as convoy, and

Saxon was left alone with the girl.

As he brought canvas after canvas from

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

various unturned piles and placed them in a

favorable light, he found one at whose vivid

glow and masterful execution, his critic caught

her breath in a delighted little gasp.

It was a thing done in daring colors and al-

most blazing with the glare of an equatorial

sun. An old cathedral, partly vine-covered,

reared its yellowed walls and towers into a hot

sky. The sun beat cruelly down on the cob-

bled street while a clump of ragged palms gave

the contrasting key of shade.

Duska, half-closing her eyes, gazed at it

with uptilted chin resting on slender fingers.

For a time, she did not speak, but the man read

her delight in her eyes. At last, she said, her

voice low with appreciation :

"I love it!"

Turning away to take up a new picture, he

felt as though he had received an accolade.

" It might have been the very spot," she

said thoughtfully, " that Senor Ribero de-

scribed in his story."

Saxon felt a cloud sweep over the sunshine

shed by her praise. His back was turned, but

his face grew, suddenly almost gray.

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

The girl only heard him say quietly:

" Senor Ribero spoke of South America.

This was in Yucatan."

When the last canvas had been criticised,

Saxon led the girl out to the shaded verandah.

" Do you know," she announced with severe

directness, " when I know you just a little bet-

ter, I'm going to lecture you?"

11 Lecture me ! His face mirrored alarm.

" Do it now — then, I sha'n't have it impending

to terrorize better acquaintance."

She gazed away for a time, her eyes cloud-

ing with doubt. At last, she laughed.

" It makes me seem foolish," she confessed,

" because you know so much more than I do

about the subject of this lecture — only," she

added with conviction, " the little I know is

right, and the great deal you know may be

wrong."

" I plead guilty, and throw myself on the

mercy of the court." He made the declara-

tion in a tone of extreme abjectness.

" But I don't want you to plead guilty. I

want you to reform."

Not knowing the nature of the reform re-

quired, Saxon remained discreetly speechless.

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

" You are the first disciple of Frederick

Marston," she said, going to the point without

preliminaries. " You don't have to be any-

body's disciple. I don't know a great deal

about art, but I've stood before Marston's pic-

tures in the galleries abroad and in this coun-

try. I love them. I've seen your pictures, too,

and you don't have to play tag with Freder-

ick Marston."

For a moment, Saxon sat twisting his pipe

in his fingers. His silence might almost have

been an ungracious refusal to discuss the mat-

ter.

" Oh, I know it's sacrilege," she said, lean-

ing forward eagerly, her eyes deep in their

sincerity, " but it's true."

The man rose and paced back and forth for

a moment, then halted before her. When he

spoke, it was with a ring like fanaticism in his

voice.

"There is no Art but Art, and Marston is

her prophet. That is my Koran of the pal-

ette." For a while, she said nothing, but shook

her head with a dissenting smile, which car-

ried up the corners of her lips in maddeningly

delicious fashion. Then, the man went on,

75;

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY,

speaking now slowly and in measured sylla-

bles:

" Some day — when I can tell you my whole

story — you will know what Marston means to

me. What little I have done, I have done in

stumbling after him. If I ever attain his per-

fection, I shall still be as you say only the copy-

ist — yet, I sometimes think I would rather be

the true copyist of Marston than the origin-

ator of any other school."

She sat listening, the toe of one small foot

tapping the floor below the short skirt of her

gown, her brow delightfully puckered with

seriousness. A shaft of sun struck the delicate

color of her cheeks, and discovered coppery

glints in her brown hair. She was very slim

and wonderful, Saxon thought, and out beyond

the vines the summer seemed to set the world

for her, like a stage. The birds with tuneful

delirium provided the orchestration.

" I know just how great he is," she conceded

warmly; "I know how wonderfully he paints.

He is a poet with a brush for a pen. But

there's one thing he lacks — and that is a thing

you have."

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

The man raised his brows in challenged as-

tonishment.

" It's the one thing I miss in his pictures,

because it's the one thing I most admire — •

strength, virility." She was talking more rap-

idly as her enthusiasm gathered headway. " A

man's pictures are, in a way, portraits of his

nature. He can't paint strong things unless

he is strong himself."

Saxon felt his heart leap. It was something

to know that she believed his canvases reflected

a quality of strength inherent to himself.

" You and your master," she went on, " are

unlike in everything except your style. Can

you fancy yourself hiding away from the

world because you couldn't face the music of

your own fame? That's not modesty — it's in-

sanity. When I was in Paris, everybody was

raving about some new pictures from his

brush, but only his agent knew where he actu-

ally was, or where he had been for years."

" For the man," he acceded, " I have as

small respect as you can have, but for the work

I have something like worship ! I began try-

ing to paint, and I was groping — groping

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

rather blindly after something — I didn't know

just what. Then, one day, I stood before his

i Winter Sunset.' You know the picture?"

She nodded assent. "Well, when I saw it, I

wanted to go out to the Metropolitan entrance,

and shout Eureka up and down Fifth Avenue.

It told me what I'd been reaching through the

darkness of my novitiate to grasp. It seemed

to me that art had been revealed to me. Some-

how," the man added, his voice falling sud-

denly from its enthused pitch to a dead, low

one, " everything that comes to me seems to

come by revelation! "

Into Duska's eyes came quick light of sym-

pathy. He had halted before her, and now she

arose impulsively, and laid a light hand for a

moment on his arm.

" I understand," she agreed. " I think that

for most artists to come as close as you have

come would be triumph enough, but you — " she

looked at him a moment with a warmth of con-

fidence — "you can do a great deal more." So

ended her first lesson in the independence of

art, leaving the pupil's heart beating more

quickly than at its commencement.

7.8

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

In the days that followed, as May gave way

to June and the dogwood blossoms dropped

and withered to be supplanted by flowering lo-

cust trees, Saxon confessed to himself that he

had lost the first battle of his campaign. He

had resolved that this close companionship

should be platonically hedged about; that he

would never allow himself to cross the fron-

tier that divided the realm of friendship from

the hazardous territory of love. Then, as the

cool, unperfumed beauty of the dogwood was

forgotten for the sense-steeping fragrance of

the locust, he knew that he was only trying to

deceive himself. He had really crossed this

forbidden frontier when he passed through

the gate that separated the grandstand at

Churchill Downs from the club-house inclos-

ure. With the realization came the resolution

of silence. He was a man whose life might

at any moment renew itself in untoward de-

velopments. Until he could drag the truth

from the sphinx that guarded his secret, his

love must be as inarticulate as was his sphinx.

He spent harrowing afternoons alone, and

swore with many solemn oaths that he would

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

never divulge his feelings, and, when he sought

about for the most sacred and binding of vows,

he swore by his love for Duska.

Because of these things, he sometimes

shocked and startled her with sporadic demon-

strations of the brusquerie into which he with-

drew when he felt too potential an impulse urg-

ing him to the other extreme. And she, not

understanding it, yet felt that there was some

riddle behind it all. It pained and puzzled

her, but she accepted it without resentment —

belying her customary autocracy. While she

had never gone into the confessional of her

heart as he had done, these matters sometimes

had the power of making her very miserable.

His happiest achievements resulted from

sketching trips taken to points she knew in the

hills. He had called her a dryad when she

first appeared in the woods, and he had been

right, for she knew all the twisting paths in

the tangle of the knobs, unbroken and virgin

save where the orchards of peach-growers had

reclaimed bits of sloping soil. One morning

at the end of June, they started out together on

horseback, armed with painting paraphernalia,

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

luncheon and rubber ponchos in the event of

rain. For this occasion, she had saved a coign

of vantage she knew, where his artist's eye

might swing out from a shelving cliff over

miles of checkered valley and flat, and league

upon league of cloud and sky. She led the

way by zigzag hill roads where they caught

stinging blows from back-lashing branches and

up steep, slippery acclivities. It was one of

the times when Saxon was drinking the pleas-

ant nectar of to-day, refusing to think of to-

morrow. She sang as she rode in advance, and

he followed with the pleasure of a man to

whom being unmounted brings a sense of in-

completeness. He knew that he rode no bet-

ter than she — and he knew that he could ride.

In his ears was the exuberance of the birds sa-

luting the morning, and in his nostrils the loamy

aroma stirred by their horses' hoofs from the

steeping fragrance of last year's leaves. At

the end was a view that brought his breath in

deep draughts of delight.

For two hours, he worked, and only once

his eyes left the front. On that occasion, he

glanced back to see her slim figure stretched

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

with childlike and unconscious grace in the

long grass, her eyes gazing unblinkingly and

thoughtfully up to the fleece that drifted across

the blue of the sky. Clover heads waved fra-

grantly about her, and one long-stemmed blos-

som brushed her cheek. She did not see him,

and the man turned his gaze back to the canvas

with a leap in his pulses. After that, he

painted feverishly. Finally, he turned to find

her at his elbow.

"What is the verdict?" he demanded.

She looked with almost tense eyes. Her

voice was low and thrilled with wondering de-

light.

" There is something," she said slowly,

"that you never caught before; something

wonderful, almost magical. I don't know

what it is."

With a swift, uncontrollable gesture, he bent

a little toward her. His face was the face of

a man whose heart is in insurrection. His voice

was impassioned.

"/ know what it is," he cried. Then, as she

read his look, her cheeks crimsoned, and it would

have been superfluous for him to have added,

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" Love." He drew back almost with a start,

and began to scrape the paint smears from his

palette. He had quelled the insurrection. At

least in words, he had not broken his vow.

For a moment, the girl stood silent. She felt

herself trembling; then, taking refuge in child-

like inconsequence, she peered over the edge

of the cliff.

" Oh ! " she exclaimed as though the last few

moments had not been lived through, " there

is the most wonderfulest flower ! " Her voice

was disappointment-laden. "And it's just out

of reach. ,,

Saxon had regained control of himself. He

answered with a composure too calm to be gen-

uine and an almost flippant note that rang

false.

" Of course. The most wonderfulest things

are always just out of reach. The edelweiss

grows only among the glaciers, and the excel-

sior crop must be harvested on inaccessible pin-

nacles."

He came and looked over the edge, stopping

close to her shoulder. He wanted to demon-

strate his regained command of himself. A

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

delicate purple flower hung on the cliff below

as though it had been placed there to lure men

over the edge.

He looked down the sheer drop, appraised

with his eye the frail support of a jutting root,

then slipped quietly over, resting by his arms

on the ledge of rock and groping for the root

with his toe.

With a short, gasping exclamation, the girl

bent forward and seized both his elbows. Her

fingers clutched him with a strength belied by

their tapering slenderness.

"What are you doing?" she demanded.

She was kneeling on the ledge, and in her

eyes, only a few inches from his own, he read,

not only alarm, but back of that in the depths of

the pupils something else. It might have been

the reflection of what she had a few moments

before read in his own. He could feel the soft

play of her breath on his forehead, and his

heart pounded so wildly that it seemed to him

he must raise his voice to be heard above it.

Yet, his words and smile were sane.

" I am going to gather flowers," he assured

her. " You see," he added with an irrelevant

8 4

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

whimsicality, " I want to see if the unattain-

able is really beyond me."

" If you go," she said with ominous quiet-

ness of voice, " I shall come, too."

The man clambered back to the ledge.

" I'm not going," he announced.

For a time, neither spoke. Each, with a con-

sciousness of being much shaken, was seeking

about for the safe ground of commonplace.

The man's face had suddenly become almost

drawn. He was conscious of having been too

close to the edge in more ways than one, and

with the consciousness came the old sense of

necessity for silence. He was approaching

one of the moods that puzzled the girl: the

attitude of fighting her off; the turtle's churlish

defense of drawing into himself.

It was Duska who spoke first. She laughed

as she said lightly:

" For a man who is a great artist, you are

really very young and very silly."

His voice was hard.

" I'm worse than that," he acceded^

For a moment more, there was awkward si-

lence; then, Duska asked simply:

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

"Aren't you going to paint any more?"

He was gazing at the canvas moodily, al-

most savagely.

"No," he answered shortly; "if I were to

touch it now, I should ruin it."

The girl said nothing. She half-turned away

from him, and her lips set themselves tightly.

As he began packing the impedimenta,

storm-pregnant clouds rolled swiftly forth over

the valley, and emptied themselves in a deluge

on the two wanderers. The girl, riding under

dripping trees, her poncho and " nor'wester "

shining like metal under the slanting lines of

rain, went on ahead. In her man's saddle, she

sat almost rigidly erect, and the gauntleted

hand that held the reins of the heavy cavalry

bridle clutched them with unconscious tautness

of grip. Saxon's face was a picture of strug-

gle, and neither spoke until they had come to

the road at the base of the hill where two

horses could go abreast. Then, he found him-

self quoting:

" Her hand was still on her sword hilt, the spur

was still on her heel,

She had not cast her harness of gray war-dinted

steel;

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

High on her red-splashed charger, beautiful, bold

and browned,

Bright-eyed out of the battle, the Young Queen

rode to be crowned."

He did not realize that he had repeated the

lines aloud, until she turned her face and spoke

with something nearer to bitterness than he

had ever heard in her voice :

" Rode to be crowned — did you say? " And

she laughed unhappily.

8 7

CHAPTER VI

For more than a week after the ride to the

cliff, Duska withdrew herself from the orbit

in which Saxon revolved, and the man, feel-

ing that she wished to dismiss him, 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

11 big house," Saxon protested that he must

stay and write letters. He slipped away, how-

ever, in the summer starlight, and took one of

the canoes from the boat-house on the river.

He drove the light craft as noiselessly and

gloomily as a funeral barge along the shadow

of the bank, the victim of utter misery, and his

blackness of mood was intensified when he saw

a second canoe pass in mid-channel, and recog-

nized 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 fringes of

shadow, but he could make out a slender figure

wielding the stern paddle with an easy grace

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

which he knew was Duska's. His sentiment

was in no wise jealousy, but it was in every wise

heart-hunger.

When they did meet, she was cordial and

friendly, but the old intimate regime had been

disturbed, and for the man the sun was clouded.

He was to send a consignment of 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 creative work impossible, he devoted

himself to that touching up and varnishing

which is largely mechanical, and made frequent

trips to town for the selection of frames.

So much of his time had been spent at Horton

House that unbroken absence would have been

noticeable. His visits were, however, rarer,

and on one occasion Mrs. Horton made an an-

nouncement which he found decidedly startling.

" I have been wanting to take a trip to Cuba

early in the fall, and possibly go on to Vene-

zuela where some old friends are in the diplo-

matic service," she said, "but Mr. Horton

pleads business, and I can't persuade Duska to

go with me."

8 9

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

Af once, Steele had taken up the project with

enthusiasm, asking to be admitted to the party

and beginning an outline of plans.

Saxon found himself shuddering at the idea

of the girl's going to the coast where perhaps

he himself had a criminal record. He had

procrastinated too long. He had secretly

planned his own trip of self-investigation for

a time when the equatorial heat had begun to

abate its midsummer ferocity. Evidently, he

must hasten his departure. But the girl's an-

swer in part reassured him.

" It doesn't appeal, Aunty. Why not get

the Longmores? They are always ready to go

touring. They've exhausted the far East, and

are weeping for new worlds."

Saxon went back early that night, and once

more tramped the woods. Steele lingered, and

later, while the whippoorwills were calling and

a small owl plaintively lamenting, he and Duska

sat alone on the white-columned verandah.

" Duska," he said suddenly, " is there no

chance for me — no little outside chance?"

She looked up, and shook her head slowly.

" I wish I could say something else, George,"

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

she answered earnestly, "because I love you as

a very dearest brother and friend, but that is

all it can ever be."

" Is there no way I can remake or remold

myself?" he urged. "I have held the Pla-

tonic attitude all summer, but to-night makes

all the old uncontrollable thoughts rise up and

clamor for expression. Is there no way?"

" George " — her voice was very soft — " it

hurts me to hurt you — but I'd have to lie to you

if I said there was a way. There can't be —

ever."

"Is there any — any new reason?" he asked.

For a moment, she hesitated in silence, and

the man bent forward.

" I shouldn't have asked that, Duska — I don't

ask it," he hastened to amend. "Whether

there is a new reason or just all the old ones,

is there .any way I can help — any way, leaving

myself out of it, of course?"

Again, she shook her head.

" I guess there's no way anyone can help,"

she said.

Back at the cabin, Steele found his guest

moodily pacing the verandah. The glow of his

9 1

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

pipe bowl was a point of red against the black.

The Kentuckian dropped into a chair, and for

a time neither spoke.

At last, Steele said slowly:

" Bob, I have just asked Duska if I had a

chance."

The other man wheeled in astonishment.

Steele had indeed maintained his Platonic pose

so well that the other had not suspected the

fire under what he believed to be an extinct

crater. His own feeling had been the one

thing he had not confided. They had never

spoken to each other of Duska in terms of love.

" You ! " he said, dully. " I didn't know— "

Steele rose. With his hand on the door-knob,

he paused.

"Bob," he said, "the answer was the old

one. It's also been, * No.' I've had my

chance. Of course, I really knew it all the

while, and yet I had to ask once more. I

sha'n't ask again. It hurts her — and I want

to see her happy." He turned and went in,

closing the door behind him.

But Duska was far from happy, however

much Steele and others might wish to see her

so. She spent much time in solitary rides and

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

walks. She knew now that she loved Saxon,

and she knew that he had shown in every word-

less way that he loved her, yet could she be

mistaken? Would he ever speak, since he had

not spoken at the cliff? Her own eyes had held

a declaration, and she had read in his that he

understood the message. His silence at that

time must be taken to mean silence for all time.

Saxon had reached his conclusion. He knew

that he had hurt her pride, had rejected his op-

portunity. But that might be a transient grief

for her. For him, it would of course be per-

manent. Men may love at twenty, and recover

and love again, even to the number 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 en-

ter her life by the gate she seemed willing to

open for him would mean the taking into that

sacred inclosure of every hideous possibility

that clouded his own future. He must not enter

the gate, and, in order to be sure that a second

mad impulse would not drive him through it,

he must put distance between himself and the

gate.

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

On one point, he temporized. He was eager

to do one piece of work that should be his

masterpiece. The greatest achievement of his

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

women, but in the environment that he liked

to think was her own by divine right. It was

the dryad that he sought to put on canvas.

He asked her with so much genuine plead-

ing in his voice that she smilingly consented,

and the sittings began in the old-fashioned gar-

den at Horton House. She was posed under

a spread of branches and in such 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 can-

vas what he felt, would give a result whereon

he might well rest his reputation. But to him

it meant more than just that, for it was giving

expression to what he saw through his love of

art and his art of love.

The hours given to the first sittings were si-

lent hours, but that was not remarkable. Saxon

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

always worked in silence, though there were

times when he painted with gritted teeth be-

cause of thoughts he read in the face he was

studying — thoughts which the model did not

know her face revealed. At times, Mrs. Hor-

ton sat in the shade near by, and watched the

hand that nursed the canvas with its brush, the

steady, bare forearm that needed no mahl-

stick for support and the eyes that were nar-

rowed to slits as he studied his tones and wide

as he painted. Sometimes, Steele lingered near

with a novel which he read aloud, but it hap-

pened that in the final sittings there was no one

save painter and model.

It was now late in July, and the canvas had

begun to take form with a miraculous quality

and glow. Perhaps, the man himself did not

realize that he could never again paint such a

portrait, or any landscape that would be com-

parable 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

say. He was putting into the work pent-up

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

love of such force that it was almost bursting

his heart. Here on canvas as through some

wonderful safety-valve, he was passionately

converting it all into the vivid eloquence of

color.

It had been his fancy, since the picture had

become something more than a strong, prelim-

inary sketch, that Duska should not see it until

it neared completion, and she, wishing to have

her impression one unspoiled by foretastes, had

assented to the idea. Each day after the pos-

ing ended, and while he rested and let her rest,

the face of the canvas was covered with an-

other 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 outdoor world was aglow with

gracious weather and the air had the wonder-

ful, almost pathetic softness that sometimes

comes to Kentucky for a few days in July,

bringing, as it seems, a fragment strayed out of

Indian Summer and lost in the mid-heat of the

year.

The man stood back and covered the portrait,

then, when the girl had seated herself before

9 6

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

the easel, he stepped forward, and laid his hand

on the covering. He hesitated a moment, and

his fingers on the blank canvas trembled. He

was unveiling the effort of his life, and to him

she was the world. If he had failed! Then,

with a deft movement, he lifted the concealing

canvas, and waited.

For a moment, the girl looked with bated

breath, then something between a groan and a

stifled cry escaped her. She turned her eyes

to him, and rose unsteadily from her seat. Her

hands went to her breast, and she wavered as

though she would fall. Saxon was at her side

in a moment, and, as he supported her, he felt

her arm tremble.

"Are you ill?" he asked, in a frightened

voice.

She shook her head, and smiled. She had

read the love-letters, and she had read, too,

what silence must cost him. Other persons

might see only wonderful art in the portrait,

but she saw all the rest, and, because she saw it,

silence seemed futile.

" It is a miracle ! " she whispered.

The man stood for a moment at her side,

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

then his face became gray, and he half-wheeled

and covered it with his hands.

The girl took a quick step to his side, and her

young hands were on his shoulders.

"What is it, dear?" she asked.

With an exclamation that stood for the

breaking of all the dykes he had been building

and fortifying and strengthening through the

past months, he closed his arms around her,

and crushed her to him.

For a moment, he was oblivious of every

lesser thing. The past, the future had no exist-

ence. Only the present was alive and vital 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 con-

ceivably give way to other times before or after.

It was like the hills that looked down — un-

changeable to the end of things!

Nothing else could count — could matter.

The human heart and human brain could not

harbor meaner thoughts. She loved him. She

was in his arms, therefore his arms circled the

universe. Her breath was on his face, and life

was good.

Then came the shock of realization. His

9 8

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

sphinx rose before him — not a sphinx that kept

the secrets of forty dead centuries, but one that

held in cryptic silence all the future. He could

not offer a love tainted with such peril without

explaining how tainted it was. Now, he must

tell her everything.

" I love you," he found himself repeating

over and over; "I love you."

He heard her voice, through singing stars :

" I love you. I have never said that to any-

one else — never until now. And," she added

proudly, " I shall never say it again — except to

you."

In his heart rose a torrent of rebellion. To

tell her now — to poison her present moment,

wonderful with the happiness of surrender —

would be cruel, brutal. 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 fate to surrender his

secret. He would settle things without making

her a sharer in the knowledge that peril shad-

owed their love. He would find a way !

Standing there with her close to his heart,

and her own palpitating against his breast, he

felt more than a match for mere facts and con-

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY,

ditions. It seemed ridiculous that he had al-

lowed things to bar his way so long. Now, he

was thrice armed, and must triumph !

" I know now why the world was made," he

declared, joyfully. " I know why all the other

wonderful women and all the other wonderful

loves from the beginning of time have beenl

It was," he announced with the supreme ego-

tism of the moment, " that I might compare

them with this."

And so the resolve to be silent was cast away,

and after it went the sudden resolve to tell

everything. Saxon, feeling only triumph, did

not realize that he had, in one moment, lost his

second and third battles.

An hour later, they strolled back together

toward the house. Saxon was burdened with

the canvas on which he had painted his master-

piece. They were silent, but walking on the

milky way, their feet stirring nothing meaner

than star-dust. On the verandah, Steele met

them, and handed his friend a much-forwarded

letter,, addressed in care of the Louisville club

where he had dined. It bore the stamp of a

South American Republic.

ioo

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

It was not until he had gone to his room that

night that the man had time to glance at it,

or even to mark its distant starting point. Then,

he tore open the envelope, and read this mes-

sage:

" My Erstwhile Comrade:

" Though I've had no line from you in these

years I don't flatter myself that you've for-

gotten me. It has come to my hearing through

certain channels — subterranean, of course —

that your present name is Saxon and that you've

developed genius and glory as a paint-wizard.

" It seems you are now a perfectly respectable

artist! Congratulations — also bravo!

" My object is to tell you that I've tried to

get word to you that despite appearances it was

not I who tipped you off to the 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 went West your where-

abouts have been a well-kept secret. I am in-

nocent, as heaven is my witness ! Of course, I

am keeping mum.

"H. S. R."

IOI,

CHAPTER VII

A SHORT time ago, Saxon had felt stronger

than all the forces of fate. He had believed

that circumstances were plastic and man in-

vincible. Now, as he bent forward in his

chair, the South American letter hanging in

limp fingers and the coal-oil lamp on the table

throwing its circle of light on the foreign post-

mark and stamp of the envelope, he realized

that the battle was on. The forces of which

he had been contemptuous were to engage him

at once, with no breathing space before the

combat. Viewing it all in this light, he felt

the qualms of a general who encounters an

aggressive enemy before his line is drawn and

his battle front arranged.

He had so entirely persuaded himself that

his duty was clear and that he must not speak

to the girl of love that now, when he had done

so, his entire plan of campaign must be re-

vised, and new problems must be considered.

When he had been swept away on the tide that

carried him to an avowal, it had been with the

102

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

vague sense of realization that, if he spoke at

all, he must tell the whole story. He had not

done so, and now came a new question: Had

he the right to tell the story until, in so far as

possible, he had probed its mystery? Suppose

his worst fears proved themselves. The cer-

tainty would be little harder to confess than

the presumption and the suspense. Suppose,

on the other hand, the fighting chance to which

every man clings should, after all, acquit him?

Would it not be needless cruelty to inflict on

her the fears that harried his own thoughts?

Must he not try first to arm himself with a

definite report for, or against, himself?

After all, he argued weakly, or perhaps it

was the devil's advocate that whispered the

insidious counsel, there might be a mistake.

The man of Ribero's story might still be some

one else. He had never felt the instincts of

murder. Surely, he had not been the em-

bezzler, the libertine, the assassin ! But, in an-

swer to that argument, his colder logic con-

tended there might have been to his present

Dr. Jekyll a Mr. Hyde of the past. The let-

ter he held in his hand of course meant nothing

103

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

more than that Ribero had talked to some one.

It might be merely the fault of some idle gos-

sip in a Latin-American cafe, when the claret

flowed too freely. The writer, this unknown

" H. S. R.," had probably taken Ribero's tes-

timony at its face value. Then, out of the page

arose insistently the one sentence that did mean

something more, the new link in a chain of

definite conclusion. " Since you beat it to God's

Country and went West — " That was the new

evidence this anonymous witness had contrib-

uted. He had certainly gone West!

Assuredly, he must go to South America, and

prosecute himself. To do this meant to thrust

himself into a situation that held a hundred

chances, but there was no one else who could

determine it for him. It was not merely a mat-

ter of collecting and sifting evidence. It was

also a test of subjecting his dormant memory

to the stimulus of place and sights and sounds

and smells. When he stood at the spot where

Carter had faced his executioners, surely, if he

were Carter, he would awaken to self-recogni-

tion. He would slip away on some pretext, and

try out the issue, and then, when he spoke to

104

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

Duska, he could speak in definite terms. And

if he were the culprit? The question came

back as surely as the pendulum swings to the

bottom of the arc, and rested at the hideous

conviction that he must be the malefactor.

Then, Saxon rose and paced the floor, his hand

convulsively crushing the letter into a crumpled

wad.

Well, he would not come back! If that were

his world, he would not reenter it. He was

willing to try himself — to be his own prosecutor,

but, if the thing spelled a sentence of disgrace,

he reserved the right to be also his own execu-

tioner.

Then, the devil's advocate again whispered

seductively into his perplexity.

Suppose he went and tested the environment,

searching conscience and memory — and suppose

no monitor gave him an answer. Would he

not then have the right to assume his inno-

cence? Would he not have the right to feel

certain that his memory, so stimulated and still

inactive, was not only sleeping, but dead?

Would he not be justified in dismissing the fear

of a future awakening, and, as Steele had sug-

105

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY,

gested, in going forward in the person of Rob-

ert A. Saxon, abandoning the past as completely

as he had perhaps abandoned previous incar-

nations?

So, for the time, he stilled his fears, and un-

der his brush the canvases became more won-

derful than they had ever been. He had Duska

at his side, not only in the old intimacy, but in

the new and more wonderful intimacy that had

come of her acknowledged love. He would

finish the half-dozen pictures needed to com-

plete the consignment for the Eastern and Eu-

ropean exhibits, then he would start on his

journey.

A week later, Saxon took Duska to a dance at

the club-house on the top of one of the hills of

the ridge, and, after she had tired of dancing,

they had gone to a point where the brow of the

knob ran out to a jutting promontory of rock.

It was a cape in the dim sea of night mist which

hung upon, and shrouded, the flats below. Be-

yond the reaches of silver gray, the more dis-

tant hills rose in mystic shadow-shapes of deep

cobalt. There were stars overhead, but they

were pale in the whiter light of the moon, and

106

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

all the world was painted, as the moon will

paint it, in silvers and blues.

Back of them was the softened waltz-music

that drifted from the club-house and the bright

patches of color where the Chinese lanterns

swung among the trees.

As they talked, the man felt with renewed

force that the girl had given him her love in

the wonderful way of one who gives but once,

and gives all without stint or reserve. It was

as though she had presented him uncondition-

ally with the key to the archives of her heart,

and made him possessor of the unspent wealth

of all the Incas.

Suddenly, he realized that his plan of leaving

her without explanation, on a quest that might

permit no return, was meeting her gift with

half-confidence and deception. What he did

with himself now, he did with her property. He

was not at liberty to act without her full un-

derstanding and sympathy in his undertakings.

The plan was one of infinite brutality.

He must tell her everything, and then go.

He struck a match for his cigar, to give him-

self a moment of arranging his words, and, as

107

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

he stood shielding the light against a faintly-

stirring breeze, the miniature glare fell on her

delicately chiseled lips and nose and chin. Her

expression made him hesitate. She was very

young, very innocently childlike and very happy.

To tell her now would be like spoiling a little

girls' party. It must be told soon, but not while

the dance music was still in their ears and the

waxy smell of the dance candles still in their

nostrils.

When he left her at Horton House, he did

not at once return to the cabin. He wanted

the open skies for his thoughts, and there was

no hope of sleep.

He retraced his steps from the road, and

wandered into the old-fashioned garden. At

last, he halted by the seat where he had posed

her for the portrait. The moon was sinking,

and the shadows of the garden wall and trees

and shrubs fell in long, fantastic angles across

the silvered earth. The house itself was dark

except where the panes of her window still

glowed. Standing between the tall stalks of

the hollyhocks, he held his watch up to the

moon. It was half-past two o'clock.

10S

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY,

Then, he looked up and started with surprise

as he saw her standing in the path before him.

At first, he thought that his imagination had

projected her there. Since she had left him at

the stairs, the picture she had made in her white

gown and red roses had been vividly perma-

nent, though she herself had gone.

But, now, her voice was real.

" Do you prowl under my windows all night,

kind sir?" she laughed, happily. "I believe

you must be almost as much in love as I am."

The man reached forward, and seized her

hand.

" It's morning," he said. " What are you do-

ing here? "

" I couldn't sleep," she assured him. Then,

she added serenely: " Do you suppose that the

moon shines like this every night, or that I can

always expect times like these? You know,"

she taunted, " it was so hard to get you to ad-

mit that you cared that it was an achievement.

I must be appreciative, mustn't I ? You are an

altogether reserved and cautious person."

He seized her in his arms with neither re-

serve nor caution.

109

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

"Listen," he said in an impassioned voice,

" I have no right to touch you. In five min-

utes, you will probably not even let me speak

to you. I had no right to speak. I had no

right to tell you that I loved you ! "

She did not draw away. She only looked

into his eyes very solemnly.

"You had no right?" she repeated, in a be-

wildered voice. " Don't you love me? "

" You don't have to ask that," he avowed.

11 You know it. Your own heart can answer

such questions."

"Then," she decreed with womanlike phi-

losophy, " you had a right to say so — because

I love you, and that is settled."

"No," he expostulated, "I tell you I did

not have the right. You must forget it. You

must forget everything." He was talking with

mad impetuosity.

" It is too late," she said simply. " Forget ! "

There was an indignant ring in her words.

" Do you think that I could forget — or that, if

I could, I would? Do you think it is a thing

that happens every day?"

From a tree at the fence line came the softly

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

lamenting note of a small owl, and across the

fields floated the strident shriek of a lumbering

night freight.

To Saxon's ears, the inconsequential sounds

came with a painful distinctness. It was only

his own voice that seemed to him muffled in a

confusion of roaring noises. His lips were so

dry that he had to moisten them with his

tongue.

To hesitate, to temporize, even to soften his

recital, would mean another failure in the tell-

ing of it. He must plunge in after his old

method of directness, even brutality, without

preface or palliation.

Here, at all events, brutality were best. If

his story appalled and repelled her, it would be

the blow that would free her from the thraldom

of the love he had unfairly stolen. If she turned

from him with loathing, at least anger would

hurt her less than heartbreak.

" Do you remember the story Ribero so

graphically told of the filibuster and assassin

and the firing squad in the plaza?" As he

spoke, Saxon knew with a nauseating sense of

certainty that his brain had never really doubted

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY,

his identity. He had futilely argued with him-

self, but it was only his eagerness of wish that

had kept clamoring concerning the possibility

of a favorable solution. All the while, his rea-

son had convicted him. Now, as he spoke, he

felt sure, as sure as though he could really re-

member, and he felt also his unworthiness to

speak to her, as though it were not Saxon, but

Carter, who held her in his arms. He suddenly

stepped back and held her away at arms' length,

as though he, Saxon, were snatching her from

the embrace of the other man, Carter. Then,

he heard her murmuring:

" Yes, of course I remember."

" And did you notice his look of astonish-

ment when I came? Did you catch the covert

innuendoes as he talked — the fact that he talked

at me — that he was accusing me — my God !

recognizing me? "

The girl put up her hands, and brushed the

hair back from her forehead. She shook her

head as though to shake off some cloud of be-

wilderment and awaken herself from the shock

of a nightmare. She stood so unsteadily that

the man took her arm, and led her to the bench

112

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

against the wall. There, she sank down with

her face in her hands. It seemed a century, but,

when she looked up again, her face, despite its

pallor in the moonlight, was the face of one

seeking excuses for one she loves, one trying to

make the impossible jibe with fact.

" I suppose you did not catch the full signifi-

cance of that narrative. No one did except the

two of us — the unmasker and the unmasked.

Later, he studied a scar on my hand. It's too

dark to see, but you can feel it."

He caught her fingers in his own. They were

icy in his hot clasp, as he pressed them against

his right palm.

" Tell me how it happened. Tell me that —

that the sequel was a lie I " She imperiously

commanded, yet there was under the imperious-

ness a note of pleading.

" I can't," he answered. " He seemed to

know the facts. I don't."

Her senses were unsteady, reeling things, and

he in his evening clothes was an axis of black

and white around which the moonlit world

spun drunkenly.

Her voice was incredulous, far away.

ii3

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

"You don't know?" she repeated, slowly.

"You don't know what you did?"

Then, for the first time, he remembered that

he had not told her of the blind door between

himself and the other years. He had presented

himself only on a plea of guilty to the charge,

without even the palliation of forgetfulness.

Slowly . steeling himself for the ordeal, he

went through his story. He told it as he had

told Steele, but he added to it all that he had

not told Steele — all of the certainty that was

building itself against his future out of his past.

He presented the case step by step as a prose-

cutor might have done, adding bit of testimony

after bit of testimony, and ending with the sen-

tence from the letter, which told him that he

had gone West. He had played the coward

long enough. Now, he did not even mention

the hope he had tried to foster, that there

might be a mistake. It was all so horribly cer-

tain that those hopes were ghosts, and he could

no longer call them from their graves. The

girl listened without a word or an interruption

of any sort.

"And so," he said calmly at the end, "the

114

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

possibility that I vaguely feared has come for-

ward. The only thing that I know of my other

life is a disgraceful thing — and ruin."

There was a long, torturing silence as she sat

steadily, almost hypnotically, gazing into his

eyes.

Then, a remarkable thing happened. The

girl came to her feet with the old lithe grace

that had for the moment forsaken her, leaving

her a shape of slender distress. She rose buoy-

antly and laughed ! With a quick step forward,

she threw her arms around his neck, and stood

looking into his drawn face.

He caught at her arms almost savagely.

"Don't!" he commanded, harshly. "Don't!"

"Why?" Her question was serene.

" Because it was Robert Saxon that you

loved. You sha'n't touch Carter. I can't let

Carter touch you." He was holding her wrists

tightly, and pressing her away from him.

" I have never touched Carter," she said, con-

fidently. " They lied about it, dear. You were

never Carter."

In the white light, her upturned eyes were

sure with confidence.

115

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

" Now, you listen," she ordered. " You told

me a case that your imagination has constructed

from foundation to top. It is an ingenious

case. Its circumstantial evidence is skilfully

woven into conviction. They have hanged men

on that sort of evidence, but here there is a

court of appeals. I know nothing about it.

I have only my woman's heart, but my woman's

heart knows you. There is no guilt in you —

there never has been. You have tortured your-

self because you look like a man whose name

is Carter."

She said it all so positively, so much with the

manner of a decree from the supreme bench,

that, for a moment, the ghosts of hope began to

rise and gather in the man's brain; for a mo-

ment, he forgot that this was not really the final

word.

He had crucified himself in the recital to

make it easier for her to abandon him. He

had told one side only, and she had seen only

the force of what he had left unsaid. If that

could be possible, it might be possible she was

right. With the reaction came a wild momen-

116

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

tary joyousness. Then, his face grew grave

again.

" I had sworn by every oath I knew," he told

her, "that I would speak no word of love to

you until I was no longer anonymous. I must

go to Puerto Frio at once, and determine it."

Her arms tightened about his neck, and she

stood there, her hair brushing his face as though

she would hold him away from everything past

and future except her own heart.

" No ! no ! " she passionately dissented.

" Even if you were the man, which you are not,

you are no more responsible for that dead life

than for your acts in some other planet. You

are mine now, and I am satisfied.""

" But, if afterward," he went on doggedly,

" if afterward I should awake into another

personality — don't you see? Neither you nor

I, dearest, can compromise with doubtful

things. To us, life must be a thing clean be-

yond the possibility of blot."

She still shook her head in stubborn nega-

tion.

" You gave yourself to me," she said, " and

117

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

I won't let you go. You won't wake up in an-

other life. I won't let you — and, if you do — "

she paused, then added with a smile on her lips

that seemed to settle matters for all time — "that

is a bridge we will cross when we come to it —

and we will cross it together."

118

CHAPTER VIII

When he reached the cabin, Saxon found

Steele still awake. The gray advance-light of

dawn beyond the eastern ridges had grown rosy,

and the rosiness had brightened into the blue of

living day when an early teamster, passing

along the turnpike, saw two men garbed in

what he would have called " full-dress suits,"

still sitting over their cigars on the verandah

of the hill shack. A losing love either expels a

man into the outer sourness of resentment, or

graduates him into a friendship that needs no

further testing. Steele was not the type that

goes into an embittered exile. His face had be-

come somewhat fixed as he listened, but there

had been no surprise. He had known already,

and, when the story was ended, he was an ally.

a There are two courses open to you," he

said, when he rose at last from his seat, " the

plan you have of going to South America, and

the one I suggested of facing forward and leav-

ing the past behind. If you do the first, whether

119

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

or not you are the man they want, the circum-

stantial case is strong. You know too little of

your past to defend yourself, and you are plac-

ing yourself in the enemy's hands. The re-

sult will probably be against you with equal

certainty whether innocent or guilty."

11 Letting things lie," demurred Saxon,

" solves nothing."

"Why solve them?" Steele paused at his

door. " It would seem to me that with her in

your life you would be safe against forgetting

your present at all events — and that present is

enough."

The summer was drawing to its close while

Saxon still wavered. Unless he faced the

charge that seemed impending near the equator,

he must always stand, before himself at least,

convicted. Yet, Duska was immovable in her

decision, and Steele backed her intuition with so

many plausible, masculine arguments that he

waited. He was packing and preparing the

pictures that were to be shipped to New York.

Some of them would be exhibited and sold

there. Others, to be selected by his Eastern

agent, would go on to the Paris market. He

I20

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

had included the landscape painted on the cliff,

on the day when the purple flower lured him

over the edge, and the portrait of the girl.

These pictures, however, he specified, were only

for exhibition, and were not under any circum-

stances to be sold.

Each day, he insisted on the necessity of his

investigation, and argued it with all the force-

fulness he could command, but Duska stead-

fastly overruled him.

Once, as the sunset dyed the west with the

richness of gold and purple and orange and

lake, they were walking their horses along a

hill lane between pines and cedars. The girl's

eyes were drinking in the color and abundant

beauty, and the man rode silent at her saddle

skirt. She had silenced his continual argument

after her usual decisive fashion. Now, she

turned her head, and demanded:

" Suppose you went and settled this, would

you be nearer your certainty? The very dis-

proving of this suspicion would leave you where

you were before Senor Ribero told his story."

" It would mean this much," he argued. " I

should have followed to its end every clew that

121

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

was given me. I should have exhausted the

possibilities, and I could then with a clear con-

science leave the rest to destiny. I could go on

feeling that I had a right to abandon the past

because I had questioned it as far as I knew."

She was resolute.

" I should," he urged, " feel that in letting

you share the danger I had at least tried to

end it."

She raised her chin almost scornfully, and

her eyes grew deeper.

11 Do you think that danger can affect my

love? Are we the sort of people who have no

eyes in our hearts, and no hearts in our eyes,

who live and marry and die, and never have a

hint of loving as the gods love? I want to love

you that way — audaciously — taking every chance.

If the stars up there love, they love like that."

Some days later, Mrs. Horton again referred

to her wish to make the trip to Venezuela. To

the man's astonishment, Duska appeared this

time more than half in favor of it, and spoke as

though she might after all reconsider her re-

fusal to be her aunt's traveling companion.

Later, when they were alone, he questioned her,

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

and she laughed with the note of having a pro-

found secret. At last, she explained.

" I am interested in South America now," she

informed him. " I wasn't before. I shouldn't

think of letting you go there, but I guess I'm

safe in Puerto Frio, and I might settle your

doubts myself. You see," she added judicially,

" I'm the one person you can trust not to betray

your secret, and yet to find out all about this

mysterious Mr. Carter."

Saxon was frankly frightened. Unless she

promised that she would do nothing of the sort,

he would himself go at once. He had waited in

deference to her wishes, but, if the thing were to

be recognized as deserving investigation at all,

he must do it himself. He could not protect

himself behind her as his agent. She finally

assented, yet later Mrs. Horton once more re-

ferred to the idea of the trip as though she ex-

pected Duska to accompany her.

Then it was that Saxon was driven back on

strategy. The idea was one that he found it

hard to accept, yet he knew that he could never

gain her consent, and her suggestion proved

that, though she would not admit it, at heart

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

she realized the necessity of a solution. The

hanging of his canvases for exhibition afforded

an excuse for going to New York. On his ar-

rival there, he would write to her, explaining his

determination to take a steamer for the south,

and " put it to the touch, to win or lose it all."

There seemed to be no alternative.

He did not take Steele into his confidence,

. because Steele agreed with Duska, and should

be able to say, when questioned, that he had not

been a party to the conspiracy. When Saxon

stood, a few days later, on the step of an in-

bound train, the girl stood waving her sunbon-

net, slenderly outlined against the green back-

ground of the woods beyond the flag-station.

A sudden look of pain crossed the man's face,

and he leaned far out for a last glimpse of her

form.

Steele saw Duska's smile grow wistful as the

last car rounded the curve.

11 1 can't quite accustom myself to it," he said,

slowly: " this new girl who has taken the place

of the other, of the girl who did not know how

to love."

" I know more about it," she declared, " than

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

anybody else that ever lived. And I've only

one life to give to it."

Saxon's first mistake was born of the precipi-

tate haste of love. He wrote the letter to

Duska that same evening on the train. It was

a difficult letter to write. He had to explain,

and explain convincingly, that he was disobey-

ing her expressed command only because his

love was not the sort that could lull itself into

false security. If fate held any chance for him,

he would bring back victory. If he laid the

ghost of Carter, he would question his sphinx

no further.

The writing was premature, because he had

to stop in Washington and seek Ribero. He

had some questions to ask. But, at Washing-

ton, he learned that Ribero had been recalled by

government. Then, hurrying through his busi-

ness in New York, Saxon took the first steamer

sailing. It happened to be by a slow line, neces-

sitating several transfers.

It was characteristic of Duska that, when she

received the letter hardly a day after Saxon's

departure, she did not at once open it, but, slip-

ping it, dispatch-like, into her belt, she called

125

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

the terrier, and together they went into the

woods. Here, sitting among the ferns with

the blackberry thicket at her back and the creek

laughing below, she read and reread the pages.

For a while, she sat stunned, her brow drawn ;

then, she said to the terrier in a voice as nearly

plaintive as she ever allowed it to be:

" I don't like it. I don't want him ever to

go away — and yet — " she tossed her head up-

ward — " yet, I guess I shouldn't have much use

for him if he didn't do just such things."

The terrier evidently approved the sentiment,

for he cocked his head gravely to the side, and

slowly wagged his stumpy tail.

But the girl did not remain long in idleness.

For, a time, her forehead was delicately corru-

gated under the stress of rapid thinking as she

sat, her fingers clasped about her updrawn

knees, then she rose and hurried to Horton

House. There were things to be done and

done at once, and it was her fashion, once reach-

ing resolution, to act quickly.

It was necessary to take Mrs. Horton into

her full confidence, because it was necessary that

Mrs. Horton should be ready to go with her,

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

as fast as trains and steamers could carry them,

to a town called Puerto Frio in South America,

and South America was quite a long way off.

Mrs. Horton had known for weeks that some-

thing more was transpiring than showed on the

surface. She had even inferred that there was

" an understanding " between her niece and the

painter, and this inference she had not found

displeasing. The story that Duska told did

astonish her, but under her composure of man-

ner Mrs, Horton had the ability to act with

prompt decision. Mr. Horton knew only part,

but was complacent, and saw no reason why a

trip planned for a later date should not be " ad-

vanced on the docket," and it was so ordered.

Steele, of course, already knew most of the

story, and it was he who kept the telephone busy

between the house and the city ticket-offices.

While the ladies packed, he w T as acquiring vast

information as to schedules and connections.

He learned that they could catch an outgoing

steamer from New Orleans, which would prob-

ably put them at their destination only a day or

two behind Saxon. Incidentally, in making

these arrangements, Steele reserved accommo-

127

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

dations for himself as well as Mrs. Horton and

her niece.

e • • • •

With the American coast left behind, Saxon's

journey through the Caribbean, even with the

palliation of the trade-winds, was insufferably

hot. The slenderly filled passenger-list gave

the slight alleviation of an uncrowded ship.

Those few travelers whose misfortunes doomed

them to such a cruise at such a time, lay list-

lessly under the awnings, and watched the face

of the water grow bluer, bluer, bluer to the hot

indigo of the twentieth parallel, where nothing

seemed cool enough for energy or motion ex-

cept the flying fish and the pursuing gull.

There were several days of this to be en-

dured, and the painter, thinking of matters fur-

ther north and further south, found no delight

in its beauty. He would stand, deep in thought,

at the bow when day died and night was

born without benefit of twilight, watching the

disk of the sun plunge into the sea like a diver.

It seemed that Nature herself was here sudden

and passionate in matters of life and death. He

saw the stars come out, low-hanging and large,

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

and the water blaze with phosphorescence wher-

ever a wave broke, brilliantly luminous where

the propeller churned the wake. It was to him

an ominous beauty, fraught with crowding por-

tents of ill omen.

The entering and leaving of ports became

monotonous. Each was a steaming village of

hot adobe walls, corrugated-iron custom houses

and sweltering, ragged palms. At last, at a

town no more or less appealing than the others,

just as the ear-splitting whistle screeched its last

warning of departure, a belated passenger came

over the side from a frantically-driven row-

boat. The painter was looking listlessly out at

the green coast line, and did not notice the new

arrival.

The newcomer followed his luggage up the

gangway to the deck, his forehead streaming

perspiration, his none-too-fresh gray flannels

splashed with salt water. At the top, he shook

the hand of the second officer, with the man-

ner of an old acquaintance.

"I guess that was close!" he announced, as

he mopped his face with a large handkerchief,

and began fanning himself with a stained Pan-

129

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

ama hat. " Did the — the stuff get aboard all

right at New York? "

The officer looked up, with a quick, cautious

glance about him.

" The machinery is stowed away in the hold,"

he announced.

" Good," replied the newcomer, energetically.

11 That machinery must be safeguarded. It is

required in the development of a country that

needs developin'. Do I draw my usual state-

room? See the purser? Good!"

The tardy passenger was tall, a bit under six

feet, but thin almost to emaciation. His face

was keen, and might have been handsome except

that the alertness was suggestive of the fox or

the weasel — furtive rather than intelligent. The

eyes were quick-seeing and roving; the nose,

aquiline; the lips, thin. On them sat habitually

a half-satirical smile. The man had black hair

sprinkled with gray, yet he could not have been

more than thirty-six or seven.

" I'll just run in and see the purser," he an-

nounced, with his tireless energy. Saxon, turn-

ing from the hatch, caught only a vanishing

glimpse of a tall, flannel-clad figure disappear-

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

ing into the doorway of the main saloon, as he

himself went to his stateroom to freshen him-

self up for dinner.

As the painter emerged from his cabin a few

minutes before the call of the dinner-bugle, the

thin man was lounging against the rail further

aft.

Saxon stood for a moment drinking in the

grateful coolness that was creeping into the air

with the freshening of the evening breeze.

The stranger saw him, and started. Then, he

looked again, with the swift comprehensive-

ness that belonged to his keen eyes, and stepped

modestly back into the protecting angle where

he could himself be sheltered from view by the

bulk of a tarpaulined life-boat. When Saxon

turned and strolled aft, the man closely followed

these movements, then went into his own cabin.

That evening, at dinner, the new passenger

did not appear. He dined in his stateroom,

but later, as Saxon lounged with his own

thoughts on the deck, the tall American was

never far away, though he kept always in the

blackest shadow thrown by boats or superstruc-

ture on the moonlit deck. If Saxon turned

l 3*

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

suddenly, the other would flatten himself fur-

tively and in evident alarm back into the black-

ness. He had the manner of a man who is

hunted, and who has recognized a pursuer.

Saxon, ignorant even of the other's presence,

had no knowledge of the interest he was him-

self exciting. Had his curiosity been aroused

to inquiry, he might have learned that the man

who had recently come aboard was one How-

ard Stanley Rodman. It is highly improbable,

however, that he would have discovered the

additional fact that the " stuff " Rodman had

asked after as he came aboard was not the

agricultural implements described in its billing,

but revolutionary muskets to be smuggled off at

sunrise to-morrow to the coast village La

Punta, five miles above Puerto Frio.

Not knowing that a conspirator was hiding

away in a cabin through fear of him, Saxon

was of course equally unconscious of having as

shipmate a man as dangerous as the cornered

wolf to one who stands between itself and

freedom.

La Punta is hardly a port. The shipping

for this section of the east coast goes to Puerto

132

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

Frio, and Saxon had not come out of his cabin

the next morning when Rodman left. The

creaking of crane chains disturbed his sleep,

but he detected nothing prophetic in the sound.

To have done so, he must have understood that

the customs officer at this ocean flag station was

up to his neck in a revolutionary plot which

was soon to burst; that the steamship line,

because of interests of its own which a change

of government would advance, had agreed to

regard the rifles in the hold as agricultural im-

plements, and that Mr. Rodman was among

the most expert of traveling salesmen for revo-

lutions and organizers of juntas. To all that

knowledge, he must then have added the quality

of prophecy. It is certain, however, that, had

he noted the other's interest in himself and

coupled with that interest the coincidence that

the initials of the furtive gentleman's name on

the purser's list were " H. S. R.," he would

have slept still more brokenly.

If he had not looked Mr. Rodman up on the

list, Mr. Rodman had not been equally delin-

quent. The name Robert A. Saxon had by no

means escaped his attention.

133

CHAPTER IX

Puerto Frio sits back of its harbor, a med-

ley of corrugated iron roofs, adobe walls and

square-towered churches. Along the water

front is a fringe of ragged palms. At one end

of the semicircle that breaks the straight coast

line, a few steamers come to anchorage; at

the other rise jagged groups of water-eaten

rocks, where the surf runs with a cannonading

of breakers, and tosses back a perpetual lather

of infuriated spray. From the mole, Saxon had

his first near view of the city. He drew a

long inhalation of the hot air, and looked anx-

iously about him.

He had been asking himself during the

length of his journey whether a reminder would

be borne in on his senses, and awaken them to a

throb of familiarity. He had climbed the slip-

pery landing stairs with the oppressing con-

sciousness that he might step at their top into a

new world — or an old and forgotten world.

J 34

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

Now, he drew to one side, and swept his eyes

questioningly about.

Before him stretched a broad open space,

through which the dust swirled hot and indo-

lent. Beyond lay the Plaza of Santo Domingo,

and on the twin towers of its church two crosses

leaned dismally askew. A few barefooted na-

tives slouched across the sun-refracting square,

their shadows blue against the yellow heat.

Saxon's gaze swung steadily about the radius of

sight, but his brain, like a paralyzed nerve,

touched with the testing-electrode, gave no re-

flex — no response.

There was a leap at his heart which became

hope as his cab jolted on to the Hotel Frances

y Ingles over streets that awoke no convicting

memories. He set out almost cheerfully for

the American Legation to present the letters of

introduction he had brought from New York

and to tell his story. Thus supplied with cre-

dentials and facts, the official might be prepared

to assist him.

His second step — the test upon which he

mainly depended — involved a search for a

yellow cathedral wall, surrounded with red

*35

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

flowers and facing an open area. There, Saxon

wanted to stand, for a moment, against the

masonry, with the sounds of the street in his

ears and the rank fragrance of the vine in his

nostrils. There he would ask his memory, un-

der the influence of these reminders, the ques-

tion the water-front had failed to answer.

That wandering, however, should be re-

served for the less conspicuous time of night.

He would spend the greater part of the day,

since his status was so dubious, in the protec-

tion of his room at the hotel.

If night did not answer the question, he would

go again at sunrise, and await the early glare

on the wall, since that would exactly duplicate

former conditions. The night influences would

be softer, less cruel — and less exact, but he

would go first by darkness and reconnoiter the

ground — unless his riddle were solved before.

The American Legation, he was informed,

stood as did his hostelry, on the main Plaza,

only a few doors distant and directly opposite

the palace of the President.

He was met by Mr. Partridge, the secretary

of legation. The minister was spending sev-

136

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

eral days at Miravista, but was expected back

that evening, or to-morrow morning at the

latest In the meantime, if the secretary could

be of service to a countryman, he would be glad.

The secretary was a likable young fellow with

frank American eyes. He fancied Saxon's face,

and was accordingly cordial.

u There is quite a decent club here for Anglo-

Saxon exiles," announced Mr. Partridge.

" Possibly, you'd like to look in? I'm occupied

for the day, but I'll drop around for you this

evening, and make you out a card."

Saxon left his letters with the secretary to

be given to the chief on arrival, and returned

to the " Frances y Ingles."

He did not again emerge from his room until

evening, and, as he left the patio of the hotel

for his journey to the old cathedral, the moon

was shining brightly between the shadows of

the adobe walls and the balconies that hung

above the pavements. As he went out through

the street door, Mr. Howard Stanley Rodman

glanced furtively up from a corner table, and

tossed away a half-smoked cigarette.

The old cathedral takes up a square. In the

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

niches of its outer wall stand the stone effigies

of many saints. Before its triple, iron-studded

doors stretches a tiled terrace. At its right

runs a side-street, and, attracted by a patch of

clambering vine on the time-stained walls,

where the moon fell full upon them, Saxon

turned into the byway. At the far end, the

facade rose blankly, fronting a bare drill-

ground, and there he halted. The painter had

not counted on the moon. Now, as he took his

place against the wall, it bathed him in an

almost effulgent whiteness. The shadows of

the abutments were inky in contrast, and the

disused and ancient cannon, planted at the curb

for a corner post, stood out boldly in relief.

But the street was silent and, except for him-

self, absolutely deserted.

For a time, he stood looking outward. From

somewhere at his back, in the vaultlike recesses

of the building, drifted the heavy pungency of

incense burning at a shrine.

His ears were alert for the sounds that

might, in their drifting inconsequence, mean

everything. Then, as no reminder came, he

closed his eyes, and wracked his imagination in

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY;

concentrated thought as a monitor to memory.

He groped after some detail of the other time,

if the other time had been an actual fragment

of his life. He strove to recall the features of

the officer who commanded the death squad,

some face that had stood there before him on

that morning; the style of uniforms they wore.

He kept his eyes closed, not only for seconds,

but for minutes, and, when in answer to his fo-

cused self-hypnotism and prodding suggestion

no answer came, there came in its stead a tor-

rent of joyous relief.

Then, he heard something like a subdued

ejaculation, and opened his eyes upon a start-

ling spectacle.

Leaning out from the shadow of an abut-

ment stood a thin man, whose face in the moon

showed a strange mingling of savagery and

terror. It was a face Saxon did not remember

to have seen before. The eyes glttered, and

the teeth showed as the thin lips were drawn

back over them in a snarling sort of smile.

But the most startling phase of the tableau, to

the man who opened his eyes upon it without

warning, was the circumstance of the unknown's

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

pressing an automatic pistol against his breast.

Saxon's first impression was that he had

fallen prey to a robber, but he knew instinc-

tively that this expression was not that of a

man bent on mere thievery. It had more depth

and evil satisfaction. It was the look of a

man who turns a trick in an important game.

As the painter gazed at the face and figure

bending forward from the abutment's sooty

shadow like some chimera or gargoyle fash-

ioned in the wall, his first sentiment was less

one of immediate peril than of argument with

himself. Surely, so startling a denouement

should serve to revive his memory, if he had

faced other muzzles there!

When the man with the pistol spoke, it was

in words that were illuminating. The voice

was tremulous with emotion, probably nervous

terror, yet the tone was intended to convey

irony, and was partly successful.

"I presume," it said icily, "you wished to

enjoy the sensation of standing at that point —

this time with the certainty of walking away

alive. It must be a pleasant reminiscence, but

one never can tell." The thin man paused, and

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

then began afresh, his voice charged with a

bravado that somehow seemed to lack gen-

uineness.

" Last time, you expected to be carried away

dead — and went away living. This time, you

expected to walk away in safety, and, instead,

you've got to die. Your execution was only

delayed." He gave a short, nervous laugh,

then his voice came near breaking as he went

on almost wildly: "I've got to kill you, Car-

ter. God knows I don't want to do it, but I

must have security! This knowledge that you

are watching me to drop on me like a hawk on

a rat, will drive me mad. They've told me up

and down both these God-forsaken coasts, from

Ancon to Buenos Ayres, from La Boca to Con-

cepcion, that you would get me, and now it's

sheer self-defense with me. I know you never

forgave a wrong — and God knows that I never

did you the wrong you are trying to revenge.

God knows I am innocent.''

Rodman halted breathless, and stood with

his flat chest rising and falling almost hysteric-

ally. He was in the state when men are most

irresponsible and dangerous.

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

Meanwhile, a pistol held in an unsteady-

hand, its trigger under an uncertain finger,

emphasized a situation that called for electrical

thinking. To assert a mistake in identity

would be ludicrous. Saxon was not in a posi-

tion to claim that. The other man seemed to

have knowledge that he himself lacked. More-

over, that knowledge was the information

which Saxon, as self-prosecutor, must have.

The only course was to meet the other's bra-

vado with a counter show of bravado, and keep

him talking. Perhaps, some one would pass in

the empty street.

"Well," demanded Rodman between gasp-

ing breaths, " why in hell don't you say some-

thing?"

Saxon began to feel the mastery of the

stronger man over the weaker, despite the fact

that the weaker supplemented his inferiority

with a weapon.

" It appears to me," came the answer, and it

wa& the first time Rodman had heard the voice,

now almost velvety, " it appears to me that

there isn't very much for me to say. You seem

to be in the best position to do the talking."

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

" Yes, damn you ! " accused the other, excit-

edly. " You are always the same — always

making the big pyrotechnic display! You

have grand-standed and posed as the debon-

air adventurer, until it's come to be second

nature. That won't help now!" The thin

man's braggadocio changed suddenly to some-

thing like a whine.

" You know I'm frightened, and you're

throwing a bluff. You're a fool not to realize

that it's because I'm so frightened that I am

capable of killing you. I've craned my neck

around every corner, and jumped at every

shadow since that day — always watching for

you. Now, I'm going to end it. I see your

plan as if it were printed on a glass pane.

You've discovered my doings, and, if you left

here alive, you'd inform the government."

Here, at least, Saxon could speak, and speak

truthfully.

" I don't know anything, or care anything,

about your plans," he retorted, curtly.

"That's a damned lie!" almost shrieked

the other man. " It's just your style. It's

just your infernal chicanery. I wrote you that

143

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

letter in good faith, and you tracked me. You

found out where I was and what I was doing.

How you learned it, God knows, but I suppose,

it's still easy for you to get into the confidence

of the juntas. The moment I saw you on the

boat, the whole thing flashed on me. It was

your fine Italian brand of work to come down

on the very steamer that carried my guns — to

come ashore just at the psychological moment,

and turn me over to the authorities on the exact

verge of my success! Your brand of humor

saw irony in that — in giving me the same sort

of death you escaped. But it's too late.

Vegas has the guns in spite of you ! There'll

be a new president in the palace within three

days." The man's voice became almost tri-

umphant. He was breathing more normally

once again, as his courage gained its second

wind.

Saxon was fencing for time. Incidentally, he

was learning profusely about the revolution of

to-morrow, but nothing of the revolution of

yesterday.

" I neither know, nor want to know, anything

about your dirty work," he said, shortly.

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

" Moreover, if you think I'm bent on venge-

ance, you are a damned fool to tell me."

Rodman laughed satirically.

" Oh, I'm not so easy as you give me credit

for being. You are trying to ' kiss your way

out,' as the thieves put it. You're trying to

talk me out of killing you, but do you know

why I'm willing to tell you all this?" He

halted, then went on tempestuously. " I'll tell

you why. In the first place, you know it al-

ready, and, in the second place, you'll never

repeat any information after to-night. It's

idiotic perhaps, but my reason for not killing

you right at the start is that I've got a fancy

for telling you the true facts, whether you

choose to believe them or not. It will ease my

conscience afterward."

Saxon stood waiting for the next move, brac-

ing himself for an opportunity that might

present itself, the pistol muzzle still pointed at

his chest.

" I'm not timid," went on the other. " You

know me. Howard Rodman, speakin' in

general, takes his chances. But I am afraid

of you, more afraid than I am of the devil in

145

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

hell. I know I can't bluff you. I saw you

stand against this wall with the soldiers out

there in front, and, since you can't be frightened

off, you must be killed." The man's voice

gathered vehemence as he talked, and his face

showed growing agitation. " And the horrible

part is that it's all a mistake, that I'd rather be

friends with you, if you'd let me. I never was

informant against you."

He paused, exhausted by his panic and his

flow of words. Saxon, with a strong effort, col-

lected his staggered senses.

" Why do you think I come for vengeance?"

he asked.

"Why do I think it?" The thin man

laughed bitterly. "Why, indeed? What ex-

cept necessity or implacable vengeance could

drive a man to this God-forsaken strip of

coast? And you — you with money enough to

live richly in God's country, you whose very

face in these boundaries invites imprisonment

or death! What else could bring you? But I

knew you'd come — and, so help me God, I'm

innocent."

A sudden idea struck Saxon. This might be

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

the cue to draw on the frightened talker with-

out self-revelation.

" What do you want me to believe were the

real facts?' he demanded, with an assumption

of the cold incredulity that seemed expected of

him.

The other spoke eagerly.

"That morning when General Ojedas'

forces entered Puerto Frio, and the govern-

ment seized me, you were free. Then, I was

released, and you arrested. You drew your

conclusions. Oh, they were natural enough.

But, before heaven, they were wrong ! "

Saxon felt that, until he had learned the full

story, he must remain the actor. Accordingly,

he allowed himself a skeptical laugh. Rod-

man, stung by the implied disbelief, took up his

argument again:

"You think I'm lying. It sounds too fishy!

Of course, it was my enterprise. It was a revo-

lution of my making. You were called in as

the small lawyer calls in the great one. I con-

cede all that. For me to have sacrificed you

would have been infamous, but I didn't do it.

I had been little seen in Puerto Frio. I was

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

not well known. I had arranged it all from

the outside while you had been in the city.

You were less responsible, but more suspected.

You remember how carefully we planned — how

we kept apart. You know that even you and

I met only twice, and that 1 never even saw

your man, Williams."

Through the bitterness of conviction, a part

of Saxon's brain seemed to be looking on im-

personally and marveling, almost with amuse-

ment, at the remarkable position in which he

found himself. Here stood a man before him

with a pistol pressed close to his chest, threat-

ening execution, denouncing, cursing, yet all

the while giving evidence of terror, almost

pleading with his victim to believe his story!

It was the armed man who was frightened,

who dreaded the act he declared he was about

to commit. And, as Saxon stood listening, it

dawned upon him, in the despair of the mo-

ment, that it was a matter of small concern to

himself whether or not the other fired. The

story he had heard had already done the injury.

The bullet would be less cruel. ... Rodman

went on:

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

" I bent every effort to saving you, but Wil-

liams had confessed. He was frightened. It

was his first experience. He didn't know of

, my connection with the thing. So help me

God, that is the true version."

The story sickened Saxon, coming to him as it

did in a form he could no longer disbelieve.

He raised his hands despairingly. At last, he

heard the other's voice again.

"When the scrap ended, and you were in

power, I had gone. I was afraid to come

back. I knew what you would think, and then,

after you left the country, I couldn't find where

you had gone."

" You may believe me or not," the painter

said apathetically, " but I have forgotten all

that. I have no resentment, no wish for

vengeance. I had not even suspected you. I

give you my word on that."

" Of course," retorted Rodman excitedly,

" you'd say that. You're looking down a gun-

barrel. You're talking for your life. Of

course, you'd lie."

Then, the revolutionist did a foolish and un-

guarded thing. He came a step nearer, and

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

pressed the muzzle closer against Saxon's chest,

his own eyes glaring into those of his captive.

The movement threw Saxon's hands out of his

diminished field of sight. In an instant, the

painter had caught the wrist of the slighter man

in a grip that paralyzed the hand, and forced it

aside. The pistol fell from the nerveless fin-

gers, and dropped clattering to the flagstones.

As it struck, Saxon swept it backward with his

foot.

Rodman leaped frantically backward, and

stood for a moment rearranging his crumpled

cuff with the dazed manner of a man who hopes

for no quarter. His lower jaw dropped, and

he remained trembling, almost idiotic of mien.

Then, as Saxon picked up the weapon and stood

fingering its trigger, the filibuster drew himself

up really with dignity. He stretched out both

empty hands, and shrugged his shoulders.

The fear of an enemy silently stalking him

had filled his days with terror. Now that he

regarded death as certain, his cowardice

dropped away like a discarded cloak.

"I don't ask much," he said simply; "only,

for God's sake kill me here ! Don't surrender

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

me to the government! At least, let the other

fellows know that I was dead before their plans

were betrayed."

" I told you," said Saxon in a dull voice,

" that I had no designs on you. I meant it !

I told you I had forgottten. I meant it!"

As he spoke, Saxon's head dropped forward

on his chest, and he stood breathing heavily.

The moonlight, falling full on his face, showed

such heart-broken misery as might have be-

longed to the visage of some unresting ghost

in an Inferno. His eyes were the eyes of utter

despair, and the hand that held the pistol hung

limp at his side, the weapon lying loose in its

palm. Rodman stood wide-eyed before him.

Had he already been killed and returned to

life, he could hardly have been more aston-

ished, and, when Saxon at last raised his face

and spoke again, the astonishment was greater

than ever.

" Take your gun," said the painter, raising

his hand slowly, and presenting the weapon

stock first. " If you want to kill me — go ahead."

Rodman, for an instant, suspected some sub-

terfuge; then, looking into the eyes before him,

I5i

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

he realized that they were too surcharged with

sadness to harbor either vengeance or treach-

ery. He could not fathom the meaning, but he

realized that from this man he had nothing

to fear. He slowly reached out his hand, and,

when he had taken the pistol, he put it away in

his pocket.

Saxon laughed bitterly.

" So, that's the answer! " he muttered.

Without a word, the painter turned, and

walked toward the front of the cathedral;

without a word, Rodman fell in by his side, and

walked with him. When they had gone a

square, Saxon was again himself except for a

stonily set face. Rodman was wondering how

to apologize. Carter had never been a liar.

If Carter said he had no thought of vengeance,

it was true, and Rodman had insulted him

with the surmise.

Finally, the thin man inquired in a different

and much softer voice:

u What are you doing in Puerto Frio? '

" It has nothing to do with revenge or pun-

ishment," replied Saxon, "and I don't want

to hear intrigues."

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

A quarter of an hour later, they reached the

main plaza, Rodman still mystified and Saxon

walking on aimlessly at his side. He had no

definite destination. Nothing mattered. After

a long silence, Rodman demanded:

" Aren't you taking a chance — risking it in

Puerto Frio?"

" I don't know."

There was another pause, broken at last by

Rodman:

" Take this from me. Get at once in touch

with the American Legation, and keep in touch !

Stand on your good behavior. You may get

away with it." He interrupted himself abruptly

with the question : " Have you been keeping

posted on South American affairs of late? "

" I don't know who is President," replied

Saxon.

11 Well, I'll tip you off. The only men who

held any direct proof about — about the $200,-

000 in gold that left about the same time you

did " — Saxon winced — " went into oblivion with

the last revolution. Time is a great restorer,

and so many similar affairs have intervened

'that you are probably forgotten. But, if I were

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

you, I would get through my affairs early and —

beat it. It's a wise boy that is not where he

is, when he's wanted by some one he doesn't

want."

Saxon made no reply.

" Say," commented the irrepressible revolu-

tionist, as they strolled into the arcade at the

side of the main plaza, "you've changed a bit

in appearance. You're a bit heavier, aren't

you?"

Saxon did not seem to hear.

The plaza was gay with the life of the mini-

ature capital. Officers strolled about in their

brightest uniforms, blowing cigarette smoke

and ogling the seiioritas, who looked shyly back

from under their mantillas.

From the band-stand blared the national air.

Natives and foreigners sauntered idly, taking

their pleasure with languid ease. But Rodman

kept to the less conspicuous sides and the shad-

ows of the arcade, and Saxon walked with him,

unseeing and deeply miserable.

Between the electric glare of the plaza and

the first arc-light of the Calle Bolivar is a cor-

ner comparatively dark. Here, the men met

two army officers in conversation. Near them

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

waited a handful of soldiers. As the Ameri-

cans came abreast, an officer fell in on either

side of them.

" Pardon, sefiors," said one, speaking in

Spanish with extreme politeness, " but it is nec-

essary that we ask you to accompany us to the

Palace."

The soldiers had fallen in behind, following.

Now, they separated, and some of them came

to the front, so that the two men found them-

selves walking in a hollow square. Rodman

halted.

"What does this signify?" he demanded in

a voice of truculent indignation. " We are

citizens of the United States! "

" I exceedingly deplore the inconvenience,"

declared the officer. "At the Palace, I have

no doubt, it will be explained."

" I demand that we be taken first to the

United States Legation," insisted Rodman.

The officer regretfully shook his head.

"Doubtless, sefiors," he assured them, "your

legation will be immediately communicated

with. I have no authority to deviate from my

orders."

*SS

CHAPTER X

At the Palace, the Americans were sepa-

rated. Saxon was ushered into a small room,

barely furnished. Its one window was barred,

and the one door that penetrated its thick

wall was locked from the outside. It seemed

incredible that under such stimulus his memory

should remain torpid. This must be an abso-

lute echo from the past — yet, he could not re-

member. But Rodman remembered — and evi-

dently the government remembered.

About the same hour, Mr. Partridge called

at the " Frances y Ingles," where he learned

that Senor Saxon had gone out. He called

again late in the evening. Saxon had not re-

turned.

The following morning, the Hon. Charles

Pendleton, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister

Plenipotentiary of the United States of Amer-

ica, read Saxon's letters of introduction. The

letters sufficiently established the standing of

the artist to assure him his minister's interest.

i 5 6

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

Partridge was dispatched to the hotel to bring

the traveler to the legation. Partridge came

back within the hour, greatly perturbed. Hav-

ing found that Saxon had not returned during

the night, and knowing the customs of the coun-

try, he had spent a half-hour in investigating

by channels known to himself. He learned, at

the end of much questioning and cross-question-

ing, that the senor, together with another gen-

tleman evidently also an Americano del Nordo,

had passed the street-door late in the evening,

with military escort.

Mr. Partridge hastened to his legation at a

rate of speed subversive of all Puerto Frio tra-

ditions. In Puerto Frio, haste is held to be an

affront to dignity, and dignity is esteemed.

The Hon. Charles Pendleton listened to his

subordinate's report with rising choler.

His diplomacy was of the aggressive type,

and his first duty was that of making the pro-

tecting pinions of the spread eagle stretch wide

enough to reach every one of those entitled to

its guardianship.

Saxon and Rodman had the night before

entered the frowning walls of the Palace

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

through a narrow door at the side. The Amer-

ican minister now passed hastily between files

of presented arms. Inside, he learned that his

excellency, el Presidente, had not yet finished

his breakfast, but earnestly desired his excel-

lency, el ministro, to share with him an alliga-

tor pear and cup of coffee.

In the suave presence of the dictator, the min-

ister's choler did not cease. Rather, it smold-

ered while he listened perfunctorily to flatter-

ing banalities. He had struck through inter-

mediary stages; had passed over the heads of

departments and holders of portfolios, to issue

his ultimatum to the chief executive. Yet, in

approaching his subject, he matched the other's

suavity with a pleasantness that the dictator

distrusted. The dark face of the autocrat be-

came grave until, when Mr. Pendleton reached

the issue, it was deeply sympathetic, surprised

and attentive.

" I am informed that some one — I can not

yet say who — wearing your excellency's uni-

form, seized an American citizen of prominence

on the streets of Puerto Frio last evening."

The President was shocked and incredulous.

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

" Impossible ! " he exclaimed with deep dis-

tress; then, again: " Impossible ! "

From the diplomat's eloquent sketching of

the situation, it might have been gathered that

the United States war department stood anx-

iously watching for such affronts, and that the

United States war department would be very

petulant when notification of the incident

reached it. Mr. Pendleton further assured

his excellency, el Presidente, that it would be

his immediate care to see that such notification

had the right of way over the Panama cable.

" I have information, " began the dictator

slowly, " that two men suspected of connection

with an insurgent junta have been arrested. As

to their nationality, I have received no details.

Certainly, no American citizen has been seized

with my consent. The affair appears grave, and

shall be investigated. Your excellency real-

izes the necessity of vigilance. The revolu-

tionist forfeits his nationality.' , He spread

his hands in a vague gesture.

" Mr. Robert Saxon," retorted the minister,

" should hardly be a suspect. The fact that he

was not a guest at my legation, and for the

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

time a member of my family, was due only to

the accident of my absence from the city on his

arrival yesterday."

With sudden bustle, the machinery of the Pal-

ace was set in motion. Of a surety, some one

had blundered, and "some one " should be con-

dignly punished !

It was a very irate gentleman, flushed from

unwonted exertion in the tropics, who was ush-

ered at last into Saxon's room. It was a very

much puzzled and interested gentleman who

stood contemplatively studying the direct eyes

of the prisoner a half-hour later.

Saxon had told Mr. Pendleton the entire nar-

rative of his quest of himself, and, as he told it,

the older man listened without a question or

interruption, standing with his eyes fixed on the

teller, twisting an unlighted cigar in his fingers.

u Mr. Saxon, I am here to safeguard the in-

terests of Americans. Our government does

not, however, undertake to chaperon filibuster-

ing expeditions. It becomes necessary to ques-

tion you."

There followed a brief catechism in which

the replies seemed to satisfy the questioner.

1 60

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

When he came to the incident of his meeting

with Rodman, Saxon paused.

"As to Rodman," he said, "who was ar-

rested with me, I have no knowledge that

would be evidence. I know nothing except

from the hearsay of his recital. "

Mr. Pendleton raised his hand.

" I am only questioning you as to yourself.

This other man, Rodman, will have to prove

his innocence. I'm afraid I can't help him.

According to their own admissions, they know

nothing against you beyond the fact that you

were seen with him last night."

Saxon came to his feet, bewildered.

" But the previous matter — the embezzle-

ment?" he demanded. "Of course, I had

nothing to do with this affair. It was that

other for which I was arrested."

The envoy laughed.

" You punched cows six years ago. You car-

tooned five years ago, and you have painted

landscapes ever since. I presume, if it became

necessary, you could prove an alibi for almost

seven years? "

Saxon nodded. He fancied he saw the drift

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

of the argument. It was to culminate in the

same counsel that Steele had given. He would

be advised to allow the time to reach the

period when his other self should be legally

dead.

Mr. Pendleton paced the floor for a space,

then came back and halted before the cot, on

the edge of which the prisoner sat.

" I have been at this post only two years, but

I am, of course, familiar with the facts of that

case." He paused, then added with irrelevance:

" It may be that you bear a somewhat striking

resemblance to this particularly disreputable

conspirator. Of course, that's possible, but — "

" But highly improbable," admitted Saxon.

" Oh, you are not that man! That can be

mathematically demonstrated," asserted Mr.

Pendleton suddenly. " I was only reflecting on

the fallibility of circumstantial evidence. I am

a lawyer, and once, as district attorney, I con-

victed a man on such evidence. He's in the

penitentiary now, and it set me wondering

if—"

But Saxon stood dumfounded, vainly trying

to speak. His face was white, and he had

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

seized the envoy by the arm with a grip too

emphatic for diplomatic etiquette.

" Do you know what you are saying?" he

shouted. " I am not that man ! How do you

know that? "

" I know it," responded Mr. Pendleton

calmly, " because the incident of the firing-

squad occurred five years ago — and the embez-

zlement only four years back."

Saxon remained staring in wide-eyed amaze-

ment. He felt his knees grow suddenly weak,

and the blood cascaded through the arteries of

his temples. Then, he turned, and, dropping

again to the edge of the cot, covered his face

with his hands.

" You see," explained Mr. Pendleton, " there

is only one ground upon which any charge

against you can be reinstated — an impeachment

of your evidence as to how you have put in

the past five years. And," he smilingly sum-

marized, " since the case comes before this

court solely on your self-accusation, since you

have journeyed some thousands of miles merely

to prosecute yourself, I regard your evidence

on that point as conclusive."

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

Later, the envoy, with his arm through that

of the liberated prisoner, walked out past def-

erential sentries into the Plaza.

" And, now, the blockade being run," he ami-

ably inquired, "what are your plans?"

"Plans!" exclaimed Saxon scornfully; "plans,

sir, is plural. I have only one: to catch the

next boat that's headed north. Why," he ex-

plained, " there is soon going to be an au-

tumn in the Kentucky hills with all the woods

a blaze of color."

The minister's eyes took on a touch of nos-

talgia.

" I guess there's nothing much the matter

with the autumn in Indiana, either," he af-

firmed.

They walked on together at a slow gait, for

the morning sun was already beginning to beat

down as if it were focused through a burning-

glass.

" And say," suggested Mr. Pendleton at last,

" if you ever get to a certain town in Indiana

called Vevay, which is on some of the more

complete maps, walk around for me and look

at the Davis building. You won't see much — i

164

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

only a hideous two-story brick, with a metal

roof and dusty windows, but my shingle used

to hang out there — and it's in God's country! "

Before they had reached the legation, Saxon

remembered that his plans involved another

detail, and with some secrecy he sought the

cable office, and wrote a message to Duska. Its

composition consumed a half-hour, yet he felt

it was not quite the masterpiece the occasion

demanded. It read:

" Arrived yesterday. Slept in jail. Out to-

day. Am not he."

The operator, counting off the length with

his pencil, glanced up thoughtfully.

" It costs a dollar a word, sir," he vouch-

safed.

But Saxon nodded affluently, for he knew

that the City of Rio sailed north that after-

noon, and he did not know that her sister ship,

the Amazon, with Duska on board, was at this

moment nosing its way south through the

tepid water — only twenty-four hours away.

As the City of Rio wound up her rusty

anchor chains that afternoon, Saxon was jubi-

lantly smoking his pipe by the rail.

1 65

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

In the launch just putting off from the steam-

er's side stood the Hon. Mr. Pendleton, wav-

ing his hat, and Jimmy Partridge wildly shout-

ing, " Give my regards to Broadway !" The

minister's flag, which had floated over the

steamer while the great personage was on

board, was just dipping, and Saxon's hand was

still cramped under the homesick pressure of

the farewell grips.

Suddenly, the traveler had a feeling of a

presence at his elbow, and, turning, was pro-

foundly astonished to behold again the com-

placent visage of Mr. Rodman.

" You see, I still appear to be among those

present," announced the filibuster, with some

breeziness of manner. " It's true that I stand

before you, * my sweet young face still hag-

gard with the anguish it has worn,' but I'm

here, which is, after all, the salient feature of

the situation. Say, what did you do to them? "

"I?" questioned Saxon. "I did nothing.

The minister came and took me out of their

Bastile."

"Well, say, he must have thrown an awful

scare into them." Mr. Rodman thoughtfully

166

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

stroked his chin with a thin forefinger. " He

must have intimidated them unmercifully and

brutally. They stampeded into my wing of

the Palace, and set me free as though they were

afraid I had the yellow-fever. ' Wide they

flung the massive portals ' — all that sort of

thing. Now, what puzzles me is, why did they

do it? They had the goods on me — almost.

However, I'm entirely pleased." Rodman

laughed as he lighted a cigar, and waved his

hand with mock sentiment toward the shore.

"And I had put the rifles through, too," he de-

clared, jubilantly. " I'd turned them over to

the insurrecto gentleman in good order. Did

they clamor for your blood about the $200,-

000?"

" Rodman," said Saxon slowly, " I hardly

expect you to believe it, but that was a case of

mistaken identity. I'm not the man you think.

I was never in Puerto Frio before."

Rodman let the cigar drop from his aston-

ished lips, and caught wildly after it as it fell

overboard.

"What?" he demanded, at last. "How's

that?"

167

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

11 It was a man who looked like me," elu-

cidated Saxon.

" You are damned right — he looked like

you ! " Rodman halted, amazed into silence. At

last, he said: "Well, you have got the clear

nerve! What's the idea, anyhow. Don't you

trust me? "

The artist laughed.

" I hardly thought you would credit it," he

said. " After all, that doesn't make much dif-

ference. The point is, my dear boy, / know it."

But Rodman's debonair smile soon returned.

He held up his hand with a gesture of ac-

ceptance.

"What difference does it make? A gen-

tleman likes to change his linen — why not

his personality? I dare say it's a very decent

impulse."

For a moment, Saxon looked up with an in-

stinctive resentment for the politely phrased

skepticism of the other. Then, his displeasure

changed to a smile. He had, for a moment, felt

the same doubt when Mr. Pendleton brought

his verdict. Rodman had none of the facts, and

a glance at the satirical features showed that it

168

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

would be impossible for this unimaginative ad-

venturer to construe premises to a seemingly

impossible conclusion. He was the materialist,

and dealt in palpable appearances. After all,

what did it matter? He had made his effort,

and would, as he had promised Duska, vex his

Sphinx with no more questioning. He would

go on as Robert Saxon, feeling that he had

done his best with conscientious thoroughness.

It was, after all, only cutting the Gordian knot

in his life. After a moment, he looked up.

" Which way do you go?" he inquired.

The other man shrugged his shoulders.

" I go back to Puerto Frio — after the blow-

off;'

"After the blow-off ?" Saxon repeated, in in-

terrogation.

" Sure ! " Rodman stretched his thin hand

shoreward, and dropped his voice. "Take a

good look at yon fair city," he laughed, " for,

before you happen back here again, it may have

fallen under fire and sword."

The soldier of fortune spoke with some of

the pride that comes to the man who feels he

is playing a large game, whether it be a game

169

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

of construction or destruction, or whether, as

is oftener the case, it be both destruction and

construction.

The painter obediently looked back at the

adobe walls and cross-tipped towers.

11 Puerto Frio has been very good to me,"

he said, in an enigmatical voice.

But Rodman was thinking too much of his

own plans to notice the comment.

" Do you see the mountain at the back of

the city?" he suddenly demanded. "That's

San Francisco. Do you see anything queer

about it?"

The artist looked at the peak rearing its

summit against the hot blue overhead, and saw

only a sleeping tropical background for the

indolent tropical panorama stretching at its

base.

"Well — " Rodman dropped his voice yet

lower — "if you had a pair of field glasses and

studied the heights, you could see a few black

specks that are just now disused guns. By day

after to-morrow, or, at the latest, one day more,

each of those specks will be a crater, and the

town will be under a shower of solid shot.

170

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

There's some class to work that can turn as

mild a mannered hill as that into a volcano —

no?"

Saxon stood gazing with fascination.

" Meanwhile," he heard the other comment,

" shipboard is good enough for yours truly —

because, as you know, shipboard is neutral

ground for political offenders — and the next

gentleman who occupies the Palace will be a

friend who owes me something."

n i

CHAPTER XI

Saxon denied himself the lure of the deck

that evening. Though he would probably be

close behind his messages in arriving, he was

devoting himself to a full narration embodied

in a love-letter.

He bent over the task in the closeness of the

dining saloon, with such absorption that he did

not rise to investigate even when, with a pro-

tracted shrieking of whistles, there came sud-

den cessation from the jarring throb of screw-

shaft and engines. Then, the City of Rio

came to a full stop. He vaguely presumed

that another important port had been reached,

and did not suspect that the vessel lay out

of sight of land, and that a second steamer,

southbound, had halted on signal, and lay like-

wise motionless, her lights glittering just off

the starboard bow.

When, almost two hours later, he had folded

"•he last of many pages, and gone on deck for

172

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

a breath before turning in, the engines were

once more noisily throbbing, and he saw only

the bulk and lights of another vessel pointed

down-world under steam.

But, as usual, Rodman, gentleman of multi-

farious devices, was not letting facts escape

him. Indeed, it was at Rodman's instance that

two mail ships, the City of Rio and the

Amazon, had marked time for an hour and a

half. In the brewing of affairs, Rodman was

just now an important personage, and the com-

manders of these lines were under instructions

from their offices to regard his requests as

orders, and to obey them with due respect and

profound secrecy. The shifting of administra-

tions at Puerto Frio meant certain advantages

in the way of concessions to gentlemen in Wall

Street whose word, with these steamers, was

something more than influential.

Mr. Rodman had been rowed across from

the Rio to the Amazon, and he had taken with

him the hand-luggage that made his only im-

pedimenta. In Mr. Rodman's business, it was

important to travel light. If he found Serior

Miraflores among the passengers of the

173

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

Amazon, it was his intention to right-about-face,

and return south again.

Senor Miraflores had been in the States as

the secret and efficient head of that junta which

Rodman served. He had very capably di-

rected the shipping of rifles and many sub-rosa

details that must be handled beyond the fron-

tier, when it is intended to change governments

without the knowledge or consent of armed

and intrenched incumbents. The home-coming

of Senor Miraflores must of necessity be unos-

tentatious, since his arrival would be the signal

for the conversion of the quiet steeps of San

Francisco into craters.

Rodman knew that, if the senor were on

board the Amazon, his name would not be on

the sailing-list, and his august personality would

be cloaked in disguise. His point of debarka-

tion would be some secluded coast village where

fellow conspirators could hide him. His advent

into the capital itself would not be made at all

unless made at the head of an invading army,

and, if so made, he would remain as min-

ister of foreign affairs in the cabinet of Gen-

174

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

eral Vegas, to whom just now, as to himself,

the city gates were closed.

But Serior Miraflores had selected a more

cautious means of entry than the ship, which

might bear travelers who knew him. Rodman

spent an hour on the downward steamer. He

managed to see the face of every passenger,

and even investigated the swarthy visages in

the steerage. He asked of some tourists casual

questions as to destination, and chatted artlessly,

then went over the side again, and was rowed

back across the intervening strip of sea. Im-

mediately upon his departure overside, the

Amazon proceeded on her course, and five min-

utes later the City of Rio was also under way.

The next morning, after a late breakfast,

Saxon was lounging at the rail amidship. He

had ceased looking backward, and all his gaze

was for the front. Ahead of him, the white

superstructure, the white-duck uniform of the

officer pacing the bridge, the whiteness of the

holystoned deck, all stood boldly out against

the deep cobalt of the gently swelling sea.

Saxon was satisfied with life, and, when he saw

175

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

Rodman sauntering toward him, he looked up

with a welcoming nod.

" Hello, Carter — I mean Saxon." The gun-

smuggler corrected his form of address with a

laugh.

The breezy American was a changed and im-

proved man. The wrinkled gray flannels had

given way to natty white duck. His Panama

hat was new and of such quality that it could

be rolled and drawn through a ring as large as

a half-dollar. He was shaven to an extreme

pinkness of face. As Saxon glanced up, his

eyes wearing tell-tale recognition of the trans-

formation, the thin man laughed afresh.

" Notice the difference, don't you?" he gen-

ially inquired, rolling a cigarette. " The gray

grub is splendidly changed into the snow-white

butterfly. I'm a very flossy bug, eh, Saxon?"

The painter admitted the soft self-impeach-

ment with a qualification.

" I begin to think you are a very destructive

one."

11 1 am," announced Rodman, calmly. " I

could spin you many a yarn of intrigue, but

for the fact that, since you began wearing a halo

176

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

instead of a hat, you have become too sanctified

to listen."

" Inasmuch," smilingly suggested the painter,

" as we might yet be languishing in the cuartel

except for the fact that I was able to give so

good an account of myself, I don't see that you

have any reasonable quarrel with my halo."

Rodman raised his brows.

" Oh, I never lost sight of the fact that you

had some reason for the saint role, and, as you

say, I was in on the good results. But, now that

you are flitting northward, what's the idea of

keeping your ears stopped?"

" They are open," declared Mr. Saxon gra-

ciously; "you are at liberty to tell me anything

you like, but only what you like. I'm not

thirsting for criminal confessions."

" That's all right, but you — " Rodman

broke off, and his lips twisted into ironical good

humor — " no, I apologize — I mean, a fellow

who looked remarkably like you used to be so

deeply versed in international politics that I

think this new adventure would appeal to you.

Ever remember hearing of one Sefior Mira-

flores?"

177

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

Saxon shook his head, whereupon Rodman

laughed with great sophistication. Carter had

known Serior Miraflores quite well, and Rod-

man knew that Carter had known him.

" Very consistent acting," he approved.

u You're a good comedian. In the Chinese

theaters, they put flour on the comedian's nose

to show that he's not a tragedian, but you don't

need the badge. You're all right. You know

how to get a laugh. But this isn't dramatic

criticism. It's wars and rumors of wars."

The adventurer drew a long puff from his

cigarette, inhaled it deeply, and stood idly

watching the curls of outward-blown smoke

hanging in the hot air, before he went on.

" Well, Miraflores has once more been at the

helm. Of course, in the lower commissions of

the insurrecto organization, we have the usual

assortment of foreign officers, odds and ends,

but the chief difference between this enterprise

and the other one — the one Carter knew about

— is the fact that we have some artillery, and

that, when we start things going, we can come

pretty near battering down the old town."

Rodman proceeded to sketch the outlines of

128.

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

the conspiracy. It was much the stereotyped

arrangement with a few variations. Two regi-

ments in the city barracks, suspected of dis-

loyalty, had been practically disarmed by the

President, but these troops had been secretly re-

armed with a part of the guns brought in by

Rodman, and would be ready to rise at the sig-

nal, together with several other disaffected com-

mands — not for the government, but against it.

The mountain of San Francisco is really not

a mountain at all, but a foot hill of the moun-

tains. Yet, it looks down on the city of Puerto

Frio as Marathon on the sea, and here are guns

trained inward as well as outward. These

guns can shell the capital into ruins in the space

of a few hours; then, they can hurl their pro-

jectiles further, and play havoc with the en-

virons. Also, they can guard the city from the

approach that lies along the roads from the in-

terior. A commander who holds San Fran-

cisco stands at the door of Puerto Frio with a

latch-key in) his hand. The revolutionists under

Vegas had arranged their attack on the basis

of unwarned assault. The Dictator had indeed

some apprehensions, but they were fears for the

179

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

future — not for the immediate present. The

troops garrisoned on San Francisco, ostensibly

the loyal legion of the Dictator's forces, were

in reality watching the outward approaches

only as doors through which they were to wel-

come friends. The guns that were trained and

ready to belch fire on signal from Vegas, were

the guns trained inward on the city, and, when

they opened, the main plaza would resemble

nothing so much as the far end of a bowling

alley when an expert stands on the foul-line, and

the palace of the President would be the king-

pin for their gunnery. The hisurrecto forces

were to enter San Francisco without resistance,

and the opening of its crater was to be the sig-

nal for hurling through the streets of the city

itself those troops that had been secretly armed

with the smuggled weapons, completing the

confusion and throwing into stampeding panic

the demoralized remnants upon which the gov-

ernment depended.

Unless there were a traitor in very excusive

and carefully guarded councils, there would

hardly be a miscarriage of the plans.

Saxon stood idly listening to these confi-

180

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

dences. Nothing seemed strange to him, and

least of all the entire willingness of the con-

spirator to tell him things that involved life

and death for men and governments. He knew

that, in spite of all he had said, or could say,

to the other man, he was the former ally in

crime. He had thought at first that Rodman

would ultimately discover some discrepancy in

appearance which would undeceive him, but

now he realized that the secret of the continued

mistake was an almost miraculous resemblance,

and the fact that the other man had, in the

former affair, met him in person only twice, and

that five years ago.

" And so," went on Rodman in conclusion,

" I'm here adrift, waiting for the last act. I

thought Miraflores might possibly be on the

Amazon last night, and so, while you sat dawd-

ling over letter-paper and pen, little Howard

Stanley was up and doing. I went across to the

other boat, and made search, but it was another

case of nothing transpiring. Miraflores was

too foxy to go touring so openly."

Saxon felt that some comment was expected

from him, yet his mind was wandering far

181

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

afield from the doings of juntas. All these

seemed as unreal as scenes from an extrava-

gantly staged musical comedy. What appeared

to him most real at that moment was the pic-

ture of a slim girl walking, dryad-like, through

the hills of her Kentucky homeland, and the

thought that he would soon be walking with

her.

" It looks gloomy for the city," he said, ab-

stractedly.

" Say," went on Rodman, " do you know

that the only people on that boat booked for

Puerto Frio were three fool American tourists,

and that, of the three, two were women? Now,

what chance have those folks got to enjoy them-

selves? Do you think Puerto Frio, say day

after to-morrow, will make a hit with them?"

The informant laughed softly to himself, but

Saxon was still deep in his own thoughts. It

suddenly struck him with surprised discovery

that the view from the deck was beautiful. And

Rodman, also, felt the languid invitation of the

sea air, and it made him wish to talk. So, un-

mindful of a self-absorbed listener, he went on

garrulously.

182

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

" You know, I felt like quoting to them, ' Into

the jaws of death, into the mouth of hell, sailed

the three tourists,' but that would have been

to tip off state secrets. If people will fare

forth for adventure, I guess they've got to have

it."

" Do you suppose," asked Saxon perfunctor-

ily, " they'll be in actual danger? "

" Danger! " repeated the filibuster with sar-

casm. " Danger, did you say? Oh, no, of course

not. It will be a pink tea ! You know that

town as well as I do. You know there are two

places in it where American visitors can stop —

the Frances y Ingles, where you were, and the

American Legation. By day after to-morrow,

that plaza will be the bull's-eye for General

Vegas's target-practice. General Vegas has a

mountain to rest his target-gun on, and it's

loaded with shell. Oh, no, there won't be any

danger! "

"Wasn't there some pretext on which you

could warn them off?" inquired the painter.

Rodman shook his head.

"You see, I have to be careful in my talk.

I might say too much. As it was, I knocked

183

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

the town to the fellow all I could. But he

seemed hell-bent on getting there, and getting

there quick. He was a fool Kentuckian, and

you can't head off a bull-headed Kentuckian

with subtleties or hints. I've met one or two

of them before. And there was a girl along

who seemed as anxious to get there as he was.

That girl was all to the good! "

Saxon leaned suddenly forward.

" A Kentuckian? " he demanded. " Did you

hear his name? "

" Sure," announced Mr. Rodman, " Little

Howard Stanley picks up information all along

the way. The chap was named George Steele,

and "

But the speaker broke off in his story, to stand

astounded at the conduct of his auditor.

"And the girl!" shouteH Saxon, "Her

name? "

" Her name," replied the intriguer, " was

Miss Filson."

Suddenly, the inattention of the other had

fallen away, and he had wheeled, his jaw drop-

ping. For an instant, he stood in an attitude

of bewildered shock, gripping the support of

184

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

the rail like a prize-fighter struggling against

the groggy blackness of the knock-out blow.

Saxon stood such a length of time as it might

have required for the referee to count nine over

him, had the support he gripped been that of

the prize-ring instead of the steamer's rail.

Then, he stepped forward, and gripped Rod-

man's arm with fingers that bit into the flesh.

" Rodman," he said in a low voice that was

almost a whisper, between his labored breath-

ings, " I've got to talk to you — alone. There's

not a minute to lose. Come to my stateroom."

i8 5

CHAPTER XII

Below, in the narrow confines of the cabin,

Saxon paced back and forth excitedly as he

talked. For five minutes, he did not pause, and

the other man, sitting on the camp-stool in a

corner of the place, followed him with eyes

much as a lion-tamer, shut in a cage with his

uncertain charge, keeps his gaze bent on the

animal. As he listened, Rodman's expression

ran a gamut from astonishment, through sym-

pathy, and into final distrust. At last, Saxon

ended with:

"And, so, I've got to get them away from

there. I've got to get back to that town,

and you must manage it. For God's sake, don't

delay! " The painter had not touched on the

irrelevant point of his own mystery, or why the

girl had followed him. That would have been

a story the other would not have believed, and

there was no time for argument and futile per-

sonalities. The slow northward fifteen knots

had all at once become a fevered racing in the

186

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

wrong direction, and each throb of the shafts

in the engine-room seemed to hurl him madly

through space away from his goal.

When he halted in his narrative, the other

man looked sternly up, and his sharp features

were decisively set.

" Suppose I should get you there," he began

swiftly. " Suppose it were possible to get back

in time, what reason have I to trust you? Sup-

pose I were willing to trust you absolutely,

what right have I — a mere agent of a cause

that's bigger than single lives — to send you back

there, where a word from you would spoil every-

thing? My God, man, there are thousands of

people there who are risking their lives to

change this government. Hundreds of them

must die to do it. For months, we have worked

and planned, covering and secreting every de-

tail of our plotting. We have all taken our

lives in our hands. Now, a word of warning,

an indiscreet act, the changing of the garrison

on San Francisco, and where would we be?

Every platoon that follows Vegas and Mira-

flores marches straight into a death-trap ! The

signal is given, and every man goes to destruc-

187

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

tion as swift as a bat out of hell. That's what

you are asking me to do — to play traitor to my

cause. And you calmly tell me I must do it

simply because youVe got friends in town."

The man came to his feet with an excited

gesture of anger.

" You know that in this business no man can

trust his twin brother, and you ask me to trust

you to the extent of laying in your hands every-

thing I've worked for — the lives of an army! "

His tones rose to a climax of vehemence: " And

that's what you ask! "

" You know you can trust me," began Saxon,

conscious of the feeble nature of his argument.

11 You didn't have to tell me. I didn't ask your

confidence. I warned you not to tell me."

" Maybe I was a damned fool, and maybe

you were pretty slick, playing me along with

your bait of indifference," retorted Rodman,

hotly. " How am I to know whom you really

mean to warn? You insist that I shall harbor a

childlike faith in you, yet you won't trust me

enough to quit your damned play-acting. You

call on me to believe in you, yet you lie to me,

and cling to your smug alias. You won't con-

188

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

fess who you are, though you know I know it.

No, Mr. Carter, I must decline."

Saxon stood white and rigid. Every moment

wasted in argument imperiled more deeply the

girl and the friends he must save, for whose

hazarded lives he was unwittingly responsible.

Yet, he could do nothing except with Rodman's

assistance. The only chance lay in convincing

him, and that must be done at any cost. This

was no time for selecting methods.

" I don't have to tell a syllable of your

plans," he contended, desperately. "They will

go with me without asking the reason. I have

only to see them. You have my life in your

hands; you can go with me. You can disarm

me, and keep me in view every moment of the

time. You can kill me at the first false move.

You can- "

" Cut out the tommy-rot," interrupted Rod-

man, with fierce bluntness. " I can do better

than that, and you know it. My word on this

ship goes the same as if I were an admiral. I

can say to the captain that you assaulted me,

and it will be my testimony against yours. I

can have you put in irons, and thrown down in

189

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

the hold, and, by God, I'm going to do it ! "

The man moved toward the cabin bell, and

halted with his finger near the button. " Now,

damn you! my platform is Vegas y Libertad,

and I'm not the sucker I may have seemed.

If this is a trick of yours, you aren't going to

have the chance to turn it."

" Give me a moment," pleaded Saxon. He

realized with desperation that every word the

other spoke was true, that he was helpless

unless he could be convincing.

" Listen, Rodman," he hurried on, ready to

surrender everything else if he could carry his

own point. " For God's sake, listen to me !

You trusted me in the first place. I could have

left the boat at any point, and wired back ! " He

looked into the face of the other man so stead-

ily and with such hypnotic intensity that his own

eyes were the strongest argument of truth he

could have put forward.

" You say I have distrusted you, that I have

not admitted my identity as Carter. I don't

care a rap for my life. I'm not fighting for

that now. I have no designs on you or your

designs. Let me put a hypothetical question:

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

Suppose you had come to a point where your

past life was nothing more to you than the life

of another man — a man you hated as your

deadliest enemy; suppose you lived in a world

that was as different from the old one as though

it had never existed; suppose a woman had

guided you into that new world, would you, or

would you not, turn your back on the old? Sup-

pose youi learned as suddenly as I learned, from

you, on deck, that that woman was in danger,

would you, or would you not, go to her?'

Men rarely find the most eloquent or convinc-

ing words when they stand at sudden crises, but

usually men's voices and manners at such times

can have a force of convincing veracity that

means more. Possibly, it may have been the

hypnotic quality of Saxon's eyes, but, whatever

it was, Rodman found it impossible to disbe-

lieve him when he spoke in this fashion. In

the plaza, he had suddenly turned the scales and

held power of life and death over Rodman,

and his only emotion had been that of heart-

broken misery. Carter had been, like Rodman

himself, the intriguer, but he had always been

trustworthy with his friends. He had been

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

violent, bitter, avenging, but never mean in

small ways. That had been one of the reasons

why Rodman, once convinced that the danger

of vengeance was ended, had remained almost

passionately anxious to prove to the other that

he himself had not been a traitor. Carter had

been the Napoleonic adventurer, and Rodman

only the pettier type. For Carter, he held a

sort of hero-worship. Rodman's methods were

those of chicane, but rightly or wrongly he be-

lieved that he could read the human document.

If this ether man were telling the truth, and

if love of a woman were his real motive, he

could be stung into fury with a slur. If that

were only a pretext, the other would not allow

his resentment to imperil his plans — he would

repress it, or simulate it awkwardly.

11 So," he commented satirically, "it's the

good-looking young female that's got you buf-

faloed, is it? The warrior has been taken into

camp by the squaw." The tone held deliberate

intent to insult.

Saxon's lips compressed themselves into a

dangerously straight line, and his face whit-

ened to the temples. As he took a step for-

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

ward, the slighter man stepped quickly back,

and raised a hand with a gesture of explanation.

Saxon had evidently told the truth. The revo-

lutionist had satisfied himself, and his some-

what erratic method of judging results had

been to his own mind convincing. And, at the

same moment, Saxon halted. He realized that

he stood in a position where questions of life

and death, not his own, were involved. His

anger was driving him dangerously close to ac-

tion that would send crashing to ruin the one

chance of winning an effective ally. He half-

turned with something like a groan.

He was called out of his stupor of anxiety

by the voice of the other. Rodman had been

thinking fast He would take a chance, though

not such a great chance as it would seem. In-

deed, in effect, he would be taking the other

prisoner. He would in part yield to the re-

quest, but in the method that occurred to him

he would have an ample opportunity of study-

ing the other man under conditions which the

other man would not suspect. He would have

Saxon at all times in his power and under his

observation while he set traps for him. If his

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

surmise of sincerity proved false, he could act

at once as he chose, before Saxon would have

the opportunity to make a dangerous move.

He would seem to do a tremendously hazard-

ous thing in the name of friendship, but all the

while he would have the cards stacked. If at

the proper moment he still believed in the other,

he would permit the man, under supervision, to

save these friends. If not, Rodman would still

be master of the situation. Besides, he had

been seriously disappointed in not meeting

Miraflores. He had felt that there might yet

be advantages in coming closer to the theater

of the drama than this vessel going north,

though he must still remain under the protec-

tion of a foreign flag.

" So, you are willing to admit that your proper

name is Mr. Carter?" he demanded, coolly.

" I am willing to admit anything, if I can get

to Puerto Frio and through the lines," re-

sponded Saxon, readily.

" If I take you back, you will go unarmed,

under constant supervision," stipulated Rod-

man. " You will have to obey my orders, and

devise some pretext for enticing your friends

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

away, without telling them the true reason. I

shall be running my neck into a noose perhaps.

I have no right to run that of Vegas y Liber-

tad into a noose as well. Are those terms sat-

isfactory? "

" Absolutely I " Saxon let more eagerness

burst from his lips than he had intended.

" Then, come with me to the captain." Sud-

denly, Rodman wheeled, and looked at the other

man with a strange expression. " Do you know

why I'm doing this? It's a fool reason, but I

want to prove to you that I'm not the sort that

would be apt to turn an ally over to his execu-

tioners. That's why."

Five minutes later, the two stood in the cap-

tain's cabin, and Saxon noted that the officer

treated Rodman with a manner of marked def-

erence.

" Is Cartwright's steam yacht still at Mol-

lera?" demanded the soldier of fortune, incis-

ively.

" It's held there for emergencies," replied the

officer.

" It's our one chance ! Mr. Saxon and

myself must get to Puerto Frio at once. When

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

do we strike Mollera?" Rodman consulted

his watch.

" In an hour."

" Have us put off there. Send a wireless to

the yacht to have steam up, and arrange for

clearance. Put on all steam ahead for Mol-

lera."

It was something, reflected Saxon, to have

such toys to play with as this thin ally of his

could, for the moment at least, command.

" Now, I fully realize," said Rodman, as they

left the captain's cabin together, " that I'm em-

barking on the silliest enterprise of a singularly

silly career. But I'm no quitter. Cartwright,"

he explained, " is one of the owners of the line.

He's letting his yacht be used for a few things

where it comes in handy."

There was time to discuss details on the way

down the coast in the Phyllis. The yacht

had outwardly all the idle ease of a craft de-

signed merely for luxurious loafing over smooth

seas, but Cartwright had built it with one or

two other requisite qualities in mind. The

Phyllis could show heels, if ever matters

came to a chase, to anything less swift than a

196

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

torpedo-boat destroyer. Her mastheads were

6trung with the parallel wires that gave her

voice in the Marconi tongue, and Saxon had no

sooner stepped over the side than he realized

that the crew recognized in Mr. Rodman a per-

son to be implicitly obeyed

If Rodman had seemed to be won over with

remarkable suddenness to Saxon's request that

he undertake a dangerous rescue, it was now

evident to the painter that the appearance had

been in part deceiving. Here, he was more at

Rodman's mercy than he had been on the

steamer. If Rodman's word had indeed been

as he boasted, that of an admiral on the City

of Rio, it was, on the Phyllis, that of an

admiral on his own flagship. By a thousand

little, artful snares thrown into their discus-

sions of ways and means, Rodman sought to

betray the other into any utterance or action

that might show underlying treachery, and, be-

fore the yacht had eaten up the route back to

the strip of coast where the frontier stretched

its invisible line, he had corroborated his belief

that the artist was telling the truth. Had he

not been convinced, Rodman had only to speak,

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

and every man from the skipper to the Japanese

cabin boy would have been obedient to his

orders.

" We will not try to get to Puerto Frio har-

bor," explained Rodman. " It would hardly be

safe. We shall steam past the city, and anchor

at Bellavista, five miles beyond. Bellavista is

a seaside resort, and there a boat like this will

attract less attention. Also, the consulate is bet-

ter suited to our needs as to the formalities of

entering and leaving port. There, we will take

horses, and ride to town. I'll read the signs,

and, if things look safe, we can get in, collect

your people, and get out again at once. They

can go with us to the yacht, and, if you like fire-

works, we can view them from a safe distance."

La Punta, as they passed, lay sleepy by her

beach, her tattered palms scarcely stirring their

fronds in the breathless air. Later, Puerto Frio

went alongside, as quiet and untouched with any

sense of impending disturbance as the smaller

town. Behind the scattered outlying houses, the

incline went up to the base of San Francisco,

basking in the sun. The hill was a huge, inert

barrier between the green and drab of the earth

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

and the blue of the sky. Saxon drew a long

breath as he watched it in the early morning

when they passed. It was difficult to think of

even an artificial volcano awakening from such

profound slumber and indolence.

" You'd better go below, and get ready for

the ride. We go horseback. Got any riding

togs?" Rodman spoke rapidly, in crisp brevi-

ties. " No? Well, 1 guess we can rig you out.

Cartwright has all sorts of things on board.

Change into them quick. You won't need any-

thing else. This is to be a quick dash."

When the anchor dropped off Bellavista,

Saxon stood in a fever of haste on deck, garbed

in riding-clothes that almost fitted him, though

they belonged to Cartwright or some of the

guests who had formerly been pleasuring on the

yacht.

As their motor-boat was making its way shore-

ward over peacefully glinting water, the painter

ran his hand into his coat-pocket for a hand-

kerchief. He found that he had failed to pro-

vide himself. The other pockets were equally

empty, save for what money had been loose in

his trousers-pocket when he changed, and the

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

old key he always carried there. These things

he had unconsciously transferred by mere force

of habit. Everything else he had left behind.

Fie felt a mild sense of annoyance. He had

wanted, on meeting her, to hand Duska the let-

ter he had written on the night that their ships

passed, but haste was the watchword, and one

could not turn back for such trifles as pocket

furnishings.

Rodman proved the best of guides. He knew

a liveryman from whom Argentine ponies could

be obtained, and led the way at a brisk canter

out the smooth road toward the capital.

For a time, the men rode in silence between

the haciendas, between scarlet clustered vines,

clinging with heavy fragrance to adobe walls,

and the fringed spears of palms along the cac-

tus-lined roadsides.

Hitherto, the man's painting sense had lain

dormant. Now, despite his anxiety and the

nervous prodding of his heels into the flanks of

his vicious little mount, he felt that he was go-

ing toward Duska, and with the realization came

satisfaction. For a time, his eyes ceased to be

those of the man hurled into new surroundings

200

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

and circumstances, and became again those of

Frederick Marston's first disciple.

They rode before long into the country that

borders the town. Rodman's eyes were fixed

with a fascinated gaze on the quiet summit of

San Francisco. He had himself no definite

knowledge when the craters might open, and

as yet he had seen no sign of war. The initial

note must of course come drifting with the first

v wisp of smoke and the first detonation from the

mouths of those guns.

At the outskirts of the town, they turned a

sharp angle hidden behind high monastery

walls, and found themselves confronted by a

squad of native soldiery with fixed bayonets.

With an exclamation of surprise, Rodman

drew his pony back on its flanks. For a mo-

ment, he leaned in his saddle, scrutinizing the

men who had halted him. There was, of course,

no distinction of uniforms, but he reasoned that

no government troops would be guarding that

road, because, as far as the government knew,

there was no war. He leaned over and whis-

pered:

" Vegas y Liber tad! 1

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

The sergeant in command saluted with a

grave smile, and drew his men aside, as the two

horsemen rode on.

" Looks like it's getting close," commented

Rodman shortly. " We'd better hurry."

Where the old market-place stands at the

junction of the Calle Bolivar with a lesser street,

Rodman again drew down his pony, and his

cheeks paled to the temples. From the center

of the city came the sudden staccato rattle of

musketry. The plotter threw his eyes up to the

top of San Francisco, visible above the roofs,

but the summit of San Francisco still slept the

sleep of quiet centuries. Then, again, came the

clatter from the center of the town, and again

the sharp rattle of rifle fire ripped the air.

There was heavy fighting somewhere on ahead.

" Good God!' breathed the thin man.

"What does it mean?"

The two ponies stood in the narrow street,

and the air began to grow heavier with the

noise of volleys, yet the hill was silent.

Rodman rattled his reins on the pony's neck,

and rode apathetically forward. Something

had gone amiss! His dreams were crumbling.

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

At the next corner, they drew to one side. A

company of troops swept by on the double-

quick. They had been in action. Their faces

streamed with sweat, and many were bleeding.

A few wounded men were being carried by their

comrades. Rodman recognized Capitan Mo-

rino, and shouted desperately; but the officer

shook his head wildly, and went on.

Then, they saw a group of officers at the door

of a crude cafe. Among them, Rodman recog-

nized Colonel Martinez, of Vegas' staff, and

Colonel Murphy of the Foreign Legion, yet

they stood here idle, and their faces told the

story of defeat. The filibuster hurled himself

from the saddle, and pushed his way to the

group, followed by Saxon.

" What does it mean, Murphy ?" he de-

manded, breathlessly. " What in all hell can it

mean r

Murphy looked up. He was wrapping his

wrist with a handkerchief, one end of which he

held between his teeth. Red spots were slowly

spreading on the white of the bandage.

" Sure, it means hell's broke loose," replied

the soldier of fortune, with promptness. Then,

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

seeing Saxon, he shot him a quick glance of

recognition. The eyes were weary, and showed

out of a face pasted with sweat and dust.

" Hello, Carter," he found time to say.

" Glad you're with us — but it's all up with our

outfit."

This time, Saxon did not deny the title.

"What happened?'* urged Rodman, in a

frenzy of anxiety. The roaring of rifles did

not seem to come nearer, except for detached

sounds of sporadic skirmishing. The central

plaza and its environs were holding the interest

of the combatants.

" Sure, it means there was a leak. When the

boys marched up to San Francisco, they were

met with artillery fire. It had been tipped off,

and the government had changed the garrison. "

The Irish adventurer, who had led men under

half a dozen tatterdemalion flags, smiled sar-

castically. " Sure, it was quite simple! "

" And where is the fighting? " shouted Rod-

man, as though he would hold these men re-

sponsible for his shattered scheme of empire.

"Everywhere. Vegas was in too deep to

pull out. The government couldn't shell its

204

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

own capital, and so it's street to street scrappin'

now. But we're licked unless — " He halted

suddenly, with the gleam of an inspired idea in

his eyes. The leader of the Foreign Legion

was sitting on a table. Saxon noted for the first

time that, besides the punctured wrist, he was

disabled with a broken leg.

" Unless what?' questioned Colonel Mar-

tinez. That officer was pallid under his dark

skin from loss of blood. One arm was ban-

daged tightly against his side.

" Unless we can hold them for a time, and get

word to the diplomatic corps to arbitrate. A

delay would give us a bit of time to pull our-

selves together."

Martinez shrugged his shoulders.

" Impossible," he said, drearily.

"Wait. Pendleton, the American minister,

is dean of the corps. Carter here is practi-

cally a stranger in town these days, and he's got

nerve. I know him. As an American, he might

possibly make it to the legation. Carter, will

you try to get through the streets to the Ameri-

can Legation? Will you?"

Saxon had leaped forward. He liked the di-

205

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

rect manner of this man, and the legation was

his destination.

" It's a hundred to one shot, Carter, that ye

can't do it." Murphy's voice, in its excitement,

dropped into brogue. "Will ye try? Will ye

tell him to git th' diplomats togither, and ask

an armistice ? Ye know our countersign, ' Vegas

y Libertad.' "

But Saxon had already started off in the gen-

eral direction of the main plaza. For two

squares, he met no interference. For two more,

he needed no other passport than the counter-

sign, then, as he turned a corner, it seemed to

him that he plunged at a step into a reek of

burnt powder and burning houses. There was a

confused vista of men in retreat, a roar that

deafened him, and a sudden numbness. He

dropped to his knees, attempted to rise to his

feet, then seemed to sink into a welcome sleep,

as he stretched comfortably at length on the

pavement close to a wall, a detachment of

routed insurrectos sweeping by him in full flight.

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CHAPTER XIII

The passing of the fugitive insurrectos;

their mad turning at bay for one savage rally;

their wavering and breaking; their disorgan-

ized stampede spurred on by a decimating fire

and the bayonet's point: these were all incidents

of a sudden squall that swept violently through

the narrow street, to leave it again empty and

quiet. It was empty except for the grotesque

shapes that stretched in all the undignified awk-

wardness of violent death and helplessness,

feeding thin lines of red that trickled between

the cobblestones. It was silent except for echoes

of the stubborn fighting coming from the freer

spaces of the plazas and alamedas, where the

remnants of the invading force clung to their

positions behind improvised barricades with the

doggedness of men for whom surrender holds

no element of hope or mercy.

Into the canyon-like street where the frenzy

of combat had blazed up with such a sudden

spurt and burned itself out so quickly, Saxon

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

had walked around the angle of a wall, just in

time to find himself precipitated into one of the

fiercest incidents of the bloody forenoon.

Vegas and Miraflores had not surrendered.

Everywhere, the insistent noise told that the op-

posing forces were still debating every block of

the street, but in many outlying places, as in this

calle, the revolutionists were already giving

back. The attacking army had counted on

launching a blow, paralyzing in its surprise, and

had itself encountered surprise and partial pre-

paredness. It had set its hope upon a hill, and

the hill had failed. A prophet might already

read that Vegas y Libertad was the watchword

of a lost cause, and that its place in history be-

longed on a page to be turned down.

But the narrow street in which Saxon lay re-

mained quiet. An occasional balcony window

would open cautiously, and an occasional head

would be thrust out to look up and down its

length. An occasional shape on the cobbles

would moan painfully, and shift its position with

the return of consciousness, or grow more gro-

tesque in the stiffness of death as the hours wore

into late afternoon, but the great iron-studded

208

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

street-doors of the houses remained barred, and

no one ventured along the sidewalks.

Late In the day, when the city still echoed to

the snapping of musketry, and deeper notes

rumbled through the din, as small field-pieces

were brought to bear upon opposing barricades,

the thing that Saxon had undertaken to bring

about occurred of its own initiative. Word

reached the two leaders that the representatives

of the foreign powers requested an armistice

for the removal of the wounded and a confer-

ence at the American Legation, looking toward

possible adjustment. Both the government and

the insurrecto commanders grasped at the op-

portunity to let their men, exhausted with close

fighting, catch a breathing space, and to remove

from the zone of fire those who lay disabled in

the streets.

Then, as the firing subsided, some of the

bolder civilians ventured forth in search for such

acquaintances as had been caught in the streets

between the impact of forces in the unwarned

battle. For this hour, at least, all men were

safe, and there were some with matters to ar-

range, who might not long enjoy immunity.

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

Among them was Howard Rodman, who fol-

lowed up the path he fancied Saxon must have

taken. Rodman was haggard and distrait.

His plans were all in ruins, and, unless an am-

nesty were declared, he must be once more the

refugee. His belief that Saxon was really Car-

ter led him into two false conclusions. First, he

inferred from this premise that Saxon's life

would be as greatly imperiled as his own, and

it followed that he, being in his own words " no

quitter,'' must see Saxon out of the city, if the

man were alive. He presumed that in the effort

to reach the legation Saxon had taken, as would

anyone familiar with the streets, a circuitous

course which would bring him to the " Club Na-

tional," from which point he could reach the

house he sought over the roofs. He had no

doubt that the American had failed in his mis-

sion, because, by any route, he must make his

way through streets where he would encounter

fighting.

Rodman's search became feverish. There

was little time to lose. The conference might

be brief — and, after that, chaos ! But fortune

favored him. Chance led him into the right

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

street, and he found the body. Being alone, he

stood for a moment indecisive. He was too

light a man to carry bodily the wounded friend

who lay at his feet. He could certainly not

leave the man, for his ear at the chest, his fin-

ger on the pulse, assured him that Saxon was

alive. He had been struck by a falling timber

from a balcony above, and the skull seemed

badly hurt, probably fractured.

As Rodman stood debating the dilemma, a

shadow fell across the pavement. He turned

with a nervous start to recognize at his back a

newcomer, palpably a foreigner and presumably

a Frenchman, though his excellent English,

when he spoke, was only slightly touched with

accent. The stranger dropped to his knee, and

made a rapid examination, as Rodman had done.

It did not occur to him at the moment that the

man standing near him was an acquaintance of

the other who lay unconscious at their feet.

" The gentleman is evidently a non-combat-

ant — and he is badly hurt, monsieur," he vol-

unteered. " We most assuredly cannot leave

him here to die."

Rodman answered with some eagerness:

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

"Will you help me to carry him to a place

where he'll be safe? "

" Gladly." The Frenchman looked about.

"Surely, he can be cared for near here."

But Rodman laid a persuasive hand on the

other's arm.

" He must be taken to the water front," he

declared, earnestly. " After the conference, he

would not be safe here."

The stranger drew back, and stood for a mo-

ment twisting his dark mustache, while his eyes

frowned inquiringly. He was disinclined to

take part in proceedings that might have po-

litical after-effects. He had volunteered to as-

sist an injured civilian, not a participant, or ref-

ugee. There were many such in the streets.

" This is a matter of life and death," urged

Rodman, rapidly. "This man is Mr. Robert

Saxon. He had left this coast with a clean bill

of health. I explain all this because I need your

help. When he had made a part of his return

journey, he learned by chance that the city was

threatened, and that a lady who was very im-

portant to him was in danger. He hastened

back. In order to reach her, he became in-

212

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

volved, and used the insurrecto countersign.

Mr. Saxon is a famous artist." Rodman was

giving the version of the story he knew the

wounded man would wish to have told. He

said nothing of Carter.

At the last words, the stranger started for-

ward.

" A famous painter ! " His voice was full

of incredulous interest. " Monsieur, you can

not by any possibility mean that this is Robert

A. Saxon, the first disciple of Frederick Mars-

ton ! " The man's manner became enthused

and eager. " You must know, monsieur," he

went on, " that I am Louis Herve, myself a

poor copyist of the great Marston. At one

time, I had the honor to be his pupil. To me, it

is a pleasure to be of any service to Mr. Saxon.

What are we to do ? "

11 There is a small sailors' tavern near the

the mole, directed Rodman; " we must take him

there. I shall find a way to have him cared for

on a vessel going seaward. I have a yacht five

miles away, but we can hardly reach it in time.''

" But medical attention ! " demurred Mon-

sieur Herve. " He must have that."

213

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

Rodman was goaded into impatience by the

necessity for haste. He was in no mood for

debate.

"Yes, and a trained nurse!" he retorted,

hotly. " We must do the best we can. If

we don't hurry, he will need an undertaker and

a coroner. Medical attention isn't very good in

Puerto Frio prisons!"

The two men lifted Saxon between them, and

carried the unconscious man toward the mole.

Their task was like that of many others.

They passed a sorry procession of litters,

stretchers, and bodies hanging limply in the

arms of bearers. No one paid the slightest at-

tention to them, except an occasional sentry who

gazed on in stolid indifference.

At the tavern kept by the Chinaman, Juan,

and frequented by the roughest elements that

drift against a coast such as this, Rodman ex-

changed greetings with many acquaintances.

There were several wounded officers of the

Vegas contingent, taking advantage of the ar-

mistice to have their wounds dressed and dis-

cuss affairs over a bottle of wine. Evidently,

they had come here instead of to more central

214

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

and less squalid places, with the same idea that

had driven Rodman. They were the rats about

to leave the sinking ship — if they could find a

way to leave.

The tavern was an adobe building with a cor-

rugated-iron roof and a large open patio, where

a dismal fountain tinkled feebly, and one or

two frayed palms stood dusty and disconsolate

in the tightly trodden earth. About the walls

were flamboyant portraits of saints. From a

small perch in one corner, a yellow and green

parrot squawked incessantly.

But it was the life about the rough tables of

the area that gave the picture its color and va-

riety. Some had been pressed into service to

support the wounded. About others gathered

men in tattered uniforms; men with bandaged

heads and arms in slings. Occasionally, one saw

an alien, a sailor whose clothes declared him to

have no pla.ce in the drama of the scene. These

latter were usually bolstering up their bravado

with aguardiente against the sense of impend-

ing uncertainty that freighted the atmosphere.

The Frenchman, sharing with Rodman the

burden of the unconscious painter, instinctively

215

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

halted as the place with its wavering shadows

and flickering lights met his gaze at the door.

It was a picture of color and dramatic intensity.

He seemed to see these varied faces, upon which

sat defeat and suffering, sketched on a broad

canvas, as Marston or Saxon might have

sketched them.

Then, he laid Saxon down on a corner table,

and stood watching his chance companion who

recognized brother intriguers. Suddenly, Rod-

man's eyes brightened, and he beckoned his lean

hand toward two men who stood apart. Both

of them had faces that were in strong contrast

to the swarthy Latin-American countenances

about them. One was thin and blond, the

other dark and heavy. The two came across

the patio together, and after a hasty glance the

slender man bent at once over the prostrate

figure on the table. His deft fingers and man-

ner proclaimed him the surgeon. His uniform

was nondescript; hardly more a uniform than

the riding clothes worn by Saxon himself, but

on his shoulders he had pinned a major's straps.

This was Dr. Cornish, of the Foreign Legion,

but for the moment he was absorbed in his work

216

^L / ^w

- - ' wfe

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

and forgetful of his disastrously adopted pro-

fession of arms.

He called for water and bandages, and, while

he worked, Rodman was talking with the other

man. Herve stood silently looking on. He

recognized that the dark man was a ship-cap-

tain — probably commanding a tramp freighter.

" When did you come?" inquired Rodman.

" Called at this port for coal," responded the

other. " I've been down to Rio with flour, and

I have to call at La Guayra. I sail in two

hours."

"Where do you go from Venezuela?"

' 1 sailed out of Havre, and I'm going back

with fruit. The Doc's had about enough. I'm

goin' to take him with me."

For a moment, Rodman stood speculating,

then he bent eagerly forward.

" Paul," he whispered, "you know me. I've

done you a turn or two in the past."

The sailor nodded.

" Now, I want you to do me a turn. I want

you to take this man with you. He must get

out of here, and he can't care for himself. He'll

be all right — either all right or dead — before

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

you land on the other side. The Doc here will

look after him. He's got money. Whatever

you do for him, he'll pay handsomely. He's a

rich man." The filibuster was talking rapidly

and earnestly.

"Where do I take him? " asked the captain,

with evident reluctance.

"Wherever you're going; anywhere away

from here. He'll make it all right with you."

The captain caught the surgeon's eyes, and

the surgeon nodded.

Rodman suddenly remembered Saxon's story,

the story of the old past that was nothing

more to him than another life, and the other

man upon whom he had turned his back. Pos-

sibly, there might even be efforts at locating the

conspirators. He leaned over, and, though he

sunk his voice low, Herve heard him say:

" This gentleman doesn't want to be found

just now. If people ask about him, you don't

know who he is, comprende? "

"That's no lie, either," growled the ship-

master. " I ain't got an idea who he is. I

ain't sure I want him on my hands."

A sudden quiet came on the place. An officer

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

had entered the door, his face pale, and, as

though with an instantaneous prescience that he

bore bad tidings, the noises dropped away. The

officer raised his hand, and his words fell on ab-

solute silence as he said in Spanish:

" The conference is ended. Vegas surren-

ders — without terms."

" You see ! " exclaimed Rodman, excitedly.

" You see, it's the last chance ! Paul, you've got

to take him ! In a half-hour, the armistice will

be over. For God's sake, man ! " He ended

with a gesture of appeal.

The place began to empty.

" Get him to my boat, then," acceded the

captain. " Here, you fellows, lend a hand.

Come on, Doc." The man who had a ship at

anchor was in a hurry. " Don't whisper that

I'm sailing; I can't carry all the people that

want to leave this town to-night. I've got to

slip away. Hurry up."

A quarter of an hour later, Herve stood at

the mole with Rodman, watching the row-boat

that took the other trio out to the tramp

steamer, bound ultimately for France. Rodman

seized his watch, and studied its face under a

219

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

street-lamp with something akin to frantic

anxiety.

"Where do you go, monsieur?" inquired

the Frenchman.

" Go? God knows! " replied Rodman, as he

gazed about in perplexity. " But I've got to

beat it, and beat it quick."

A moment later, he was lost in the shadows.

220

CHAPTER XIV

When Duska Filson had gone out into the

woods that day to read Saxon's runaway letter,

she had at once decided to follow, with regal

disdain of half-way methods. To her own

straight-thinking mind, unhampered with petty

conventional intricacies, it was all perfectly

clear. The ordinary woman would have waited,

perhaps in deep distress and tearful anxiety, for

some news of the man she loved, because he had

gone away, and it is not customary for the

woman to follow her wandering lover over a

quadrant of the earth's circumference. Duska

Filson was not of the type that sheds tears or

remains inactive. To one man in the world,

she had said, " I love you," and to her that set-

tled everything. He had gone to the place

where his life was imperiled in the effort to

bring back to her a clear record. If he were

fortunate, her congratulation, direct from her

own heart and lips, should be the first he heard.

If he were to be plunged into misery, then above

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

all other times she should be there. Otherwise,

what was the use of loving him?

But, when the steamer was under way, crawl-

ing slowly down the world by the same route he

had taken, the days between quick sunrise and

sudden sunset seemed interminable.

Outwardly, she was the blithest passenger on

the steamer, and daily she held a sort of salon

for the few other passengers who were doomed

to the heat and the weariness of such a voyage.

But, when she was alone with Steele in the

evening, looking off at the moonlit sea, or in

her own cabin, her brow would furrow, and her

hands would clench with the tensity of her anx-

iety. And, when at last Puerto Frio showed

across the purple water with a glow of brief

sunset behind the brown shoulder of San Fran-

cisco, she stood by the rail, almost holding her

breath in suspense, while the anchor chains ran

out.

As soon as Steele had ensconced Mrs. Hor-

ton and Duska at the Frances y Ingles, he hur-

ried to the American Legation for news of

Saxon. When he left Duska in the hotel patio,

he knew, from the anxious little smile she threw

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

after him, that for her the jury deciding the

supreme question was going out, leaving her as

a defendant is left when the panel files into the

room where they ballot on his fate. He rushed

over to the legation with sickening fear that,

when he came back, it might have to be like

the juryman whose verdict is adverse.

As it happened, he caught Mr. Pendleton

without delay, and before he had finished his

question the envoy was looking about for his

Panama hat. Mr. Pendleton wanted to do sev-

eral things at once. He wanted to tell the story

of Saxon's coming and going, and he wanted to

go in person, and have the party moved over

to the legation, where they must be his guests

while they remained in Puerto Frio. It would

be several days before another steamer sailed

north. They had missed by a day the vessel on

which Saxon had gone. Meanwhile, there were

sights in the town that might beguile the inter-

vening time. Saxon had interested the envoy,

and Saxon's friends were welcome. Hospitality

is simplified in places where faces from God's

country are things to greet with the fervor of

delight.

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

At dinner that evening, sitting at the right

of the minister, Duska heard the full narrative

of Saxon's brief stay and return home. Mr.

Pendleton was at his best. There was no dip-

lomatic formality, and the girl, under the reac-

tion and relief of her dispelled anxiety, though

still disappointed at the hapless coincidence of

missing Saxon, was as gay and childlike as

though she had not just emerged from an over-

shadowing uncertainty.

" I'm sorry that he couldn't accept my hos-

pitality here at the legation," said the minis-

ter at the end of his story, with much mock

solemnity, " but etiquette in diplomatic circles

is quite rigid, and he had an appointment to

sleep at the palace."

" So, they jugged him ! " chuckled Steele, with

a grin that threatened his ears, " I always sus-

pected he'd wind up in the Bastile."

" He was," corrected the girl, her chin high,

though her eyes sparkled, " a guest of the Pres-

ident, and, as became his dignity, was supplied

with a military escort."

" He needn't permit himself any vaunting

pride about that," Steele assured her. " It's

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

just difference of method. In our country, a

similar honor would have been accorded with

a patrol wagon and a couple of policemen."

After dinner, Duska insisted on dispatching a

cablegram which should intercept the City of

Rio at some point below the Isthmus. It was

not an original telegram, but, had Saxon re-

ceived it, it would have delighted him immoder-

ately. She said:

" I told you so. Sail by Orinoco!*

The following morning, there were tours of

discovery, personally conducted by the young

Mr. Partridge. Duska had wanted to leave

the carriage at the old cathedral, and stand flat

against the blank wall, but she refrained, and

satisfied herself with marching up very close

and regarding it with hostility. As the car-

riage turned into the main plaza, a regiment

of infantry went by, the band marching ahead

playing, with the usual blare, the national an-

them. Then, as the coachman drew up his

horses at the legation door, there was sudden

confusion, followed by the noise of popping

guns. It was the hour just preceding the noon

siesta. The plaza was indolent with lounging

225

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

figures, and droning in the sleeping sing-song

chorus of lazy voices. At the sound, which for

the moment impressed the girl like the explod-

ing of a pack of giant crackers, a sudden still-

ness fell on the place, closely followed by a

startled outcry of voices as the figures in the

plaza broke wildly for cover, futilely attempt-

ing to shield their faces with their arms against

possible bullets. Then, there came a deeper de-

tonation, and somewhere the crumbling of an

adobe wall. The first sound came just as Mrs.

Horton was stepping to the sidewalk. Duska

had already leaped lightly out, and stood look-

ing on in surprise. But Mr. Partridge knew

his Puerto Frio. He led them hastily through

the huge street doors, and they had no sooner

passed than the porter, with many mumbled

prayers to the Holy Mother, slammed the great

barriers against the outside world. The final

assault for Vegas y Libertad had at last be-

gun.

Mr. Pendleton had insisted that the ladies re-

main at the rear of the house, but Duska, with

her adventurous passion for seeing all there

was to see, threatened insubordination. To her,

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

the idea of leaving several perfectly good bal-

conies vacant, and staying at the back of a house,

when the only battle one would probably ever

see was occurring in the street just outside,

seemed far from sensible. But, after she had

looked out for a few moments, had seen a be-

lated fruit-vender crumple to the street, and

had smelled the acrid stench of the burnt pow-

der, she was willing to turn away.

Inasmuch as the stay of Duska and her aunt

involved several days of waiting for the sailing

of the next ship, Duska was somewhat surprised

at hearing nothing from Saxon in the mean-

while. He had had time to reach the point to

which the cablegram was addressed. She had

told him she would sail by the Orinoco, since

that was the first available steamer. At such

a time, Saxon would certainly answer that mes-

sage. She fancied he would even manage to

join her steamer, either by coming down to

meet it, or waiting to intercept it at the place

where he had received her message. Conse-

quently, when she reached that port and sailed

again without either seeing Saxon or receiving

a message from him, she was decidedly sur-

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

prised, and, though she did not admit it even to

herself, she was likewise alarmed.

It happened that one of her fellow passen-

gers on the steamer Orinoco was a tall, grave

gentleman, who wore his beard trimmed in the

French fashion, and who in his bearing had a

certain air of distinction.

On a coast vessel, it was unusual for a pas-

senger to hold himself apart and reserved

against the chance companionships of a voyage.

Yet, this gentleman did so. He had been in-

troduced by the captain as M. Herve, had

bowed and smiled, but since that he had not

sought to further the acquaintanceship, or to

recognize it except by a polite bow or smile

when he passed one of the party on his solitary

deck promenades.

Possibly, this perfunctory greeting would

have been the limit and confine of their associ-

ations, had he not chanced to be standing one

day near enough to Duska and Steele to over-

hear their conversation. The voyage was al-

most ended, and New York was not far off.

Long ago, the lush rankness of the tropics had

given way to the more temperate beauty of the

228

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

higher zones, and this beauty was the beauty

of early autumn.

Steele was talking of Frederick Marston, and

the girl was listening with interest. As long as

Saxon insisted on remaining the first disciple, she

must of course be interested in his demi-god.

Just now, however, Saxon's name was not men-

tioned. Finally, the stranger turned, and came

over with a smile.

" When I hear the name of Frederick Mars-

ton, 1 ' he said, " I am challenged to interest.

Would I be asking too much if I sought to join

you in your talk of him?"

The girl looked up and welcomed him with

her accustomed graciousness, while Steele drew

up a camp-stool, and the Frenchman seated him-

self.

For a while, he listened sitting there, his fin-

gers clasped about his somewhat stout knee,

and his face gravely speculative, contributing to

the conversation nothing except his attention.

"You see, I am interested in Marston," he

at length began.

The girl hesitated. She had just been ex-

pressing the opinion, possibly absorbed from

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

Saxon, that the personality of the artist was ex-

tremely disagreeable. As she glanced at M.

Herve, the thought flashed through her mind

that this might possibly be Marston himself.

She knew that master's fondness for the incog-

nito. But she dismissed the idea as highly fan-

ciful, and even ventured frankly to repeat her

criticism.

At last, Herve replied, with great gravity:

" Mademoiselle, I had the honor to know the

great Frederick Marston once. It was some

years ago. He keeps himself much as a her-

mit might in these days, but I am sure that the

portion of the story I know is not that of the

vain man or of the poseur. Possibly/' he hes-

itated modestly, " it might interest mademoi-

selle?"

" I'm sure of it," declared the girl.

" Marston," he began, " drifted into the

Paris ateliers from your country, callow, mor-

bid, painfully young and totally inexperienced.

He was a tall, gaunt boy with a beard that grew

hardly as fast as his career, though finally it

covered his face. Books and pictures he knew

with passionate love. With life, he was unac-

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

quainted; at men, he looked distantly over the

deep chasm of his bashfulness. Women he

feared, and of them he knew no more than he

knew of dragons.

" He was eighteen then. He was in the

Salon at twenty-two, and at the height of fame

at twenty-six. He is now only thirty-three.

What he will be at forty, one can not surmise. "

The Frenchman gazed for a moment at the

spiraling smoke from his cigarette, and halted

with the uncertainty of a bard who doubts his

ability to do justice to his lay.

" I find the story difficult." He smiled with

some diffidence, then continued: " Had I the art

to tell it, it would be pathos. Marston was a

generous fellow, beloved by those who knew

him, but quarantined by his morbid reserve

from wide acquaintanceship. Temperament —

ah, that is a wonderful thing! It is to a man

what clouds and mists are to a land ! Without

them, there is only arid desert — with too many,

there are storm and endless rain and dreary

winds. He had the storms and rain and winds

in his life — but over all he had the genius ! The

masters knew that before they had criticized

231

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

him six months. In a year, they stood abashed

before him."

" Go on, please ! " prompted Duska, in a soft

voice of sympathetic interest.

" He dreaded notoriety, he feared fame. He

never had a photograph taken, and, when it was

his turn to pose in the sketch classes, where the

students alternate as models for their fellows,

his nervousness was actual suffering. To be

looked at meant, for him, to drop his eyes and

find his hands in his way — the hands that could

paint the finest pictures in Europe!

"To understand his half-mad conduct, one

must understand his half-mad genius. To most

men who can command fame, the plaudits of

clapping hands are as the incense of triumph.

To him, there was but the art itself — the praise

meant only embarrassment. His ideal was that

of the English poet — a land:

'Where no one shall work for money

And no one shall work for fame —

With none but the master to praise him

And none but the master to blame.'

That was what he wished, and could not have

in Paris.

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

" It was in painting only that he forgot him-

self, and became a disembodied magic behind a

brush. When a picture called down unusual

comment from critics and press, he would disap-

pear — remain out of sight for months. No

one knew where he went. Once, I remember,

in my time, he stayed away almost a year.

" He knew one woman in Paris, besides the

models, who were to him impersonal things.

Of that one woman alone, he was not afraid.

She was a pathetic sort of a girl. Her large

eyes followed him with adoring hero-worship.

She was the daughter of an English painter

who could not paint, one Alfred St. John, who

lodged in the rear of the floor above. She

herself was a poet who could not write verse.

To her, he talked without bashfulness, and for

her he felt vast sorrow. Love ! Mon dieu, no !

If he had loved her, he would have fled from

her in terror !

" But she loved him. Then, he fell ill. Ty-

phoid it was, and for weeks he was in his bed,

with the papers crying out each day what a dis-

aster threatened France and the world, if he

should die. And she nursed him, denying her-

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

self rest. Typhoid may be helped by a physi-

cian, but the patient owes his life to the nurse.

When he recovered, his one obsessing thought

was that his life really belonged to her rather

than to himself. I have already said he was

morbid half to the point of madness. Genius

is sometimes so!

" By no means a constant absintheur, in

his moods he liked to watch the opalescent

gleams that flash in a glass of Pernod. One

night, when he had taken more perhaps than

was his custom, he returned to his lodgings, re-

solved to pay the debt, with an offer of mar-

riage.

" I do not know how much was the morbid-

ness of his own temperament, and how much

was the absinthe. I know that after that it was

all wormwood for them both.

" She was proud. She soon divined that he

had asked her solely out of sympathy, and per-

haps it was at her urging that he left Paris

alone. Perhaps, it was because his fame was be-

coming too great to allow his remaining there

longer a recluse. At all events, he went away

without warning — fled precipitantly. No one

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

was astonished. His friends only laughed. For

a year they laughed, then they became a trifle

uneasy. Finally, however, these fears abated.

St. John, his father-in-law, admitted that he was

in constant correspondence with the master, and

knew where he was in hiding. He refused to

divulge his secret of place. He said that Mars-

ton exacted this promise — that he wanted to

hide. Then came new pictures, which St. John

handled as his son-in-law's agent. Paris de-

lighted in them. Marston travels about now,

and paints. Whether he is mildly mad, or only

as mad as his exaggerted genius makes him, I

have often wondered."

"What became of the poor girl?" Duska's

voice put the question, very tenderly.

" She, also, left Paris. Whether she let her

love conquer her pride and joined him, or

whether she went elsewhere — also alone, no one

knows but St. John, and he does not encourage

questions."

" I hope," said the girl slowly, " she went

back, and made him love her."

Herve caught the melting sympathy in

Duska's eyes, and his own were responsive.

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

" If she did," he said with conviction, " it

must have made the master happy. He gave

her what he could. He did not withhold his

heart from stint, but because it was so written.''

He paused, then in a lighter voice went on:

" And, speaking of Marston, one finds it im-

possible to refrain from reciting an extraor-

dinary adventure that has just befallen his

first disciple, Mr. Saxon, who is a countryman

of yours."

The girl's eyes came suddenly away from the

sea to the face of the speaker, as he continued:

" I happened to be on the streets, when wiser

folk were in their homes, just after the battle

in Puerto Frio. I found Mr. Robert Saxon —

perhaps the second landscape painter in the

world — lying wounded on a pavement among

dead revolutionists, and I helped to carry him

to an insurrecto haunt. He was smuggled un-

conscious on a ship sailing for some point in

my own land — Havre, I think. Allons! Life

plays pranks with men that make the fairy tales

seem feeble ! "

Steele had been so astounded that he had

found no opportunity to stop the Frenchman.

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

Now, as he made a sign, M. Herve looked at

the girl. She was sitting quite rigid in her

steamer chair, and her lips were white. Her

eyes were on his own, and were entirely steady.

" Will you tell us the whole story, M.

Herve? " she asked.

" Mon dieu! I have been indiscreet. I have

made a faux pas!"

The Frenchman's distress was genuinely

deep.

11 No," answered the girl. " I must know all

the story. I thank you for telling me."

As Herve told his story, he realized that the

woman whom Saxon had turned back to warn,

according to Rodman's sketching, was the

woman sitting before him on the deck of the

Orinoco.

237

CHAPTER XV

Captain Morris had been, like Rodman,

one of the men who make up the world's flot-

sam and jetsam. He, too, had meddled in the

affairs of that unstable belt which lies just above

and below the " line." South and Central

American politics and methods were familiar

to him. He had not attained the command of

the tramp freighter Albatross without learning

one decisive lesson, that of eliminating curios-

ity from his plan of living. He argued that

his passenger was an insurrecto, and, once seized

in Puerto Frio, could hardly hope to shield

himself behind American citizenship. There

had been many men in Puerto Frio when the

captain sailed who would have paid well for

passage to any port beyond the frontier, but to

have taken them might have brought complica-

tions. He had been able at some risk to slip

two men at most to his vessel under the curtain

of night, and to clear without interference. He

had chosen the man who was his friend, Dr.

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

Cornish, and the man who was his countryman

and helpless. Of course, all the premises upon

which both Rodman and this sea-going man

acted were false premises. Had he been left,

Saxon would have been in no danger. He had

none the less been shanghaied for a voyage of

great length, and he had been shanghaied out

of sincere kindness.

It had not occurred to either the captain or

the physician that the situation could outlast

the voyage. The man had a fractured skull,

and he might die, or he might recover; but one

or the other he must do, and that presumably

before the completion of the trip across the

Atlantic. That he should remain in a coma-

tose state for days proved mildly surprising

and interesting to the physician, but that at

the end of this time he should suffer a long at-

tack of brain fever was an unexpected develop-

ment. Saxon knew nothing of his journeying,

and his only conversation was that of delirium.

He owed his life to the skill and vigilance of

the doctor, who had seen and treated human

ills under many crude conditions, and who de-

voted himself with absorption to the case.

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

Neither the physician nor the captain knew

that the man had once been called Robert

Saxon. There was nothing to identify him.

He had come aboard in the riding clothes bor-

rowed from the lockers of the Phyllis, and his

pockets held only a rusty key, some American

gold and a little South American silver. With-

out name or consciousness or baggage, he was

slowly crossing the Atlantic.

Other clothing was provided, and into the

newer pockets Captain Harris and Dr. Cornish

scrupulously transferred these articles. That

Carter, if he recovered, could reimburse the

skipper was never questioned. If he died, the

care given him would be charged to the account

of humanity, together with other services this

rough man had rendered in his diversified ca-

reer.

Meanwhile, on the steamer Orinoco, the girl

was finding her clear, unflinching courage sub-

jected to the longest, fiercest siege of suspense,

and Steele tried in every possible manner to com-

fort the afflicted girl in this time of her trial and

to alleviate matters with optimistic suggestions.

M. Herve was in great distress over having

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

been the unwitting cause of fears which he

hoped the future would clear away. His aloof-

ness had ended, and, like Steele, he attached

himself to her personal following, and sought

with a hundred polite attentions to mitigate

what he regarded as suffering of his authorship.

Duska's impulse had been to leave the vessel

at the first American port, but Steele had dis-

suaded her. His plan was to wire to Kentucky

at the earliest possible moment, and learn

whether there had been any message from

Saxon. Failing in that, he advocated going on

to New York. If by any chance Saxon had

come back to the States; if, for example, he had

recovered en voyage and been transferred, as

was not impossible, to a west-bound vessel, his

agent in New York might have some tidings.

Herve cursed himself for his failure to learn,

in the confused half-hour at the Puerto Frio

tavern, the name of the vessel that had taken

Saxon on board, or at least the name of the fel-

low refugee who had befriended him.

When the ship came abreast of the fanglike

skyline of Manhattan Island, and was should-

ered against its pier at Brooklyn by swarming

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

tugs, the girl, although outwardly calm, was not

far from inward despair.

Steele's first step was the effort to learn what

steamer it might have been that left Puerto

Frio for Venezuela and thence for France. But,

in the promiscuous fleets of rusty-hulled tramps

that beat their way about the world, following

a system hardly more fixed than the course of

a night-hawk cab about a city's streets, the ef-

fort met only failure.

The girl would not consent to an interval of

rest after her sea-voyage, but insisted on accom-

panying Steele at once to the establishment of

the art dealer who had the handling of Saxon's

pictures.

The dealer had seen Mr. Saxon some time

before as the artist passed through New York,

but since that time had received no word.

He had held a successful exhibition, and had

written several letters to the Kentucky address

furnished him, but to none of them had there

been a reply. The dealer was enthusiastic over

the art of the painter, and showed the visitors

a number of clippings and reviews that were

rather adulation than criticism.

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

The girl glanced at them impatiently. The

work was great, and she was proud of its praise,

but just now she was feeling that it really

meant nothing at all to her in comparison with

the painter himself. To her, he would have

been quite as important, she realized, had no

critic praised him; had his brush never forced

a compliment from the world. Her brow

gathered in perplexity over one paragraph that

met her eye.

" The most notable piece of work that has

yet come from this remarkable palette," said

the critic, " is a canvas entitled, ' Portrait of a

lady.' In this, Mr. Saxon has done something

more than approximate the genius of Frederick

Marston. He has seemed to carry it a point

forward, and one is led to believe that such an

effort may be the door through which the artist

shall issue from the distinction of being ' Mars-

ton's first disciple ' into a larger distinction

more absolutely his own." There was more,

but the feature which caught her eye was the

fact stated that, " A gentleman bought this pic-

ture for his private collection, refusing to give

his name."

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

"What does it mean?" demanded Duska,

handing the clipping to Steele. " That picture

and the landscape from the Knob were not for

sale."

The dealer was puzzled.

" Mr. Saxon," he explained, " directed that

from this assignment two pictures were to be

reserved. They were designated by marks on

the back of the cases and the canvases. Neither

the portrait nor the landscape was so marked."

" He must have made a mistake, in the hurry

of packing," exclaimed the girl, in deep dis-

tress. "He must have marked them wrong!"

"Who bought them?" demanded Steele.

The dealer shook his head.

" It was a gentleman, evidently an English-

man, though he said he lived in Paris. He de-

clined to give his name, and paid cash. He

took the pictures with him in a cab to his hotel.

He did not even state where he was stopping."

The dealer paused, then added: " He explained

to me that he collected for the love of pictures,

and that he found the notoriety attaching to

the purchase of famous paintings extremely

distasteful."

244

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

" Have you ever seen this gentleman be-

fore? " urged Steele.

" Yes," the art agent answered reflectively,

"he has from time to time picked up several

of Mr. Saxon's pictures, and his conversation

indicated that he was equally familiar with the

work of Marston himself. He said he knew

the Paris agent of Mr. Saxon quite well, and it

is possible that through that source you might

be able to locate him. I am very sorry the

mistake occurred, and, while I am positive that

you will find the letters * N. F. S.' (not for

sale) on the two pictures I have held, I shall do

all in my power to trace the lost ones."

In one of the packing rooms, the suspicions of

Duska were corroborated. Two canvases were

found about the same shape and size as the two

that had been bought by the foreign art-lover.

Palpably, Saxon, in his hurry of boxing, had

wrongly labeled them.

In the flood of her despair, the girl found

room for a new pang. It was not only because

these pictures were the fulfillment of Saxon's

most mature genius that their loss became a lit-

tle tragedy; not even merely because in them

245

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

she felt that she had in a measure triumphed

over Marston's hold on the man she loved, but

because by every association that was important

to her and to him they were canonized.

That evening, Steele made his announcement.

He was going to Havre and Paris. If any-

thing could be learned at that end, he would

find it out, and while there he would trace the

pictures.

" You see," he assured her, with a cheery

confidence he by no means felt, " it's really

much simpler than it looks. He was hurt, and

he did not recover at once. By the time he

reaches France, the sea-voyage will have re-

stored him, and he will cable. Those tramp

steamers are slow, and he hasn't yet had time.

If he takes a little longer to get well, I'll be

there to look after him, and bring him home."

The girl shook her head.

" You haven't thought about the main thing,"

she said quickly, leaning forward and resting

her fingers lightly on his arm, " or perhaps you

thought of it, George dear, and were too kind

to speak of it. After this, he may wake up —

he may wake up the other man. I must go to

246

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

him myself. I must be with him." Her voice

became eager and vibrant: "I want to be the

first living being he will greet."

Steele found a thousand objections rising up

for utterance, but, as he looked at the steady

blue of her eyes, he left them all unsaid. She

had gone to South America, of course she would

go to France.

It would be imaginative flattery to call the

lodgings of Alfred St. John and his daughter

commodious, even with the added comforts that

the late years had brought to the alleviation of

their barrenness. The windows still looked out

over the dismal roofs of the Quartier Latin

and the frowning gray chimney pots where the

sparrows quarreled.

St. John might have moved to more com-

modious quarters, for the days were no longer

as pinched as had been those of the past, yet

he remained in the house where he had lived

before his own ambition died.

His stock-in-trade was his agency in handling

the paintings of Frederick Marston, the half-

mad painter who, since he had left Paris shortly

247

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

after his marriage, had not returned to his an-

cient haunts, or had any parcel in the life of

the art world that idolized him, except as he

was represented by this ambassador.

St. John sold the pictures that the painter,

traveling about, presumably concealing himself

under assumed names, sent back to the waiting

market and the eager critics.

And St. John knew that, inasmuch as he had

been poor, in the half-starved, hungry way of

being poor, now his commissions clothed him

and paid for his claret, and, above all, made it

possible for him to indulge the one soul he

loved with the simple comforts that softened

her suffering.

The daughter of St. John required some

small luxuries which it delighted the English-

man to give her. He had been proud when she

married Frederick Marston, he had been dis-

tressed when the marriage proved a thing of

bitterness, and during the past years he had

watched her grow thin, and had feared at first,

and known later, that she had fallen prey to the

tubercular troubles which had caused her moth-

er's death.

248

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

St. John had been a petty sort, and had not

withstood the whisperings of dishonest motives.

Paradoxically his admiration for Frederick

Marston was, seemingly at least, wholly sin-

cere.

In this hero-worship for the painter, who

had failed as a husband to make his daugh-

ter happy, there was no disloyalty for the

daughter. He knew that Marston had given all

but the love he had not been able to give and

that he had simulated this until her own insight

pierced the deception, refusing compassion

where she demanded love.

The men who rendered unto Marston their

enthusiastic admiration were men of a cult, and

tinged with a sort of cult fanaticism. St. John,

as father-in-law, agent and correspondent, was

enabled to pose along the Boulevard St. Michel

as something of a high priest, and in this small

vanity he gloried. So, when the questioners of

the cafes bombarded him with inquiries as to

when Marston would tire of his pose of hermit

and return to Paris, the British father-in-law

would throw out his shallow chest, and allow

an enigmatical smile to play in his pale eyes,

249

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

and a faint uplift to come to the corners of his

thin lips, but he never told.

" I have a letter here," he would say, tap-

ping the pocket of his coat. " The master is

well, and says that he feels his art to be broad-

ening."

'Between the man and his daughter, the sub-

ject of the painter was never mentioned. After

her return from England, where she had spent

the first year after Marston dropped out of her

life, she had exacted from her father a promise

that his name should not be spoken between

them, and the one law St. John never trans-

gressed was that of devotion to her.

Her life was spent in the lodgings, to which

St. John clung because they were in the building

where Marston had painted. She never sug-

gested a removal to more commodious quar-

ters. Possibly, into her pallid life had crept a

sentimental fondness for the place for the same

reason. Her weakness was growing into

feebleness. Less, each day, she felt like going

down the steep flights of stairs for a walk in

the Boulevard of St. Michael, and climbing

'250

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

them again on her return. More heavily each

day, she leaned on his supporting arm. All

these things St. John noted, and day by day the

traces of sandy red in his mustache and beard

faded more and more into gray, and the furrow

between his pale blue eyes deepened more per-

ceptibly.

St. John had gone one afternoon to a neigh-

boring atelier f and the girl, wandering into his

room, saw a portrait standing on the easel

which St. John had formerly used for his own

canvases. Most of the pictures that came here

were Marston's. This one, like the rest, was

unsigned. She sank into the deeply cushioned

chair that St. John kept for her in his own

apartment, and gazed fixedly at the portrait.

It was a picture of a woman, and the woman

in the chair smiled at the woman on the canvas.

"You are very beautiful — my successor!'

she murmured. For a time, she studied the

warm, vivid tones of the painted features, then,

with the same smile, devoid of bitterness, she

went on talking to the other face.

" I know you are my successor," she said,

251

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

" because the enthusiasm painted into your face

is not the enthusiasm of art alone — nor," she

added slowly, " is it pity ! "

Then, she noticed that one corner of the can-

vas caught the light with the shimmer of wet

paint. It was the corner where ordinarily an

artist affixes his name. She rose and went to

the heavy studio-easel, and looked again with

her eyes close to the stretchers. The paint was

evidently freshly applied to that corner of the

canvas. To her peering gaze, it almost seemed

that through the new coating of the background

she could catch a faint underlying line of red,

as though it had been a stroke in the letter of a

name. Then, she noticed her father's palette

lying on a chair near the easel, and the brushes

were damp. The lake and VanDyke brown

and neutral-tint that had been squeezed from

their tubes were mixed into a rich tone on the

palette, which matched the background of the

portrait. Sinking back in the chair, fatigued

even by such a slight exertion, she heard her

father's returning tread on the stairs.

From the door, he saw her eyes on the pic-

ture, but true to his promise he remained silent,

252

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

though, as he caught her gaze on the palette, his

own eyes took on something of anxiety and

foreboding.

" Does he sign his pictures now? " she asked

abruptly.

"No. Why?"

" It looked — almost," she said wearily, " as

though the signature had been painted out there

at the corner."

For an instant, St. John eyed his daughter

with keen intentness.

" The canvas was scraped in shipping," he

said, at last. " I touched up the spot where the

paint was rubbed."

For a time, both were silent. The father saw

that two hectic spots glowed on the girl's blood-

less cheeks, and that her eyes, fixed on the pic-

ture, wore a deeply wistful longing.

He, too, knew that this picture was a declara-

tion of love, that in her silence she was tor-

turing herself with the thought that these other

eyes had stirred the heart that had remained

closed to her. He did not want to admit to

her that this was not a genuine Marston ; yet, he

faltered a moment, and resolved that he could

253

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

not, even for so necessary a deception, let her

suffer.,

"That portrait, my child," he confessed

slowly, " was not painted by — by him. It's

by another artist, a lesser man, named Saxon."

Into the deep-set eyes surged a look of in-

credulous, but vast, relief. The frail shoulders

drew back from their shallow-chested sag, and

the thin lips smiled.

"Doesn't he sign his pictures, either?" she

demanded, finally.

For an instant, St. John hesitated awkwardly

for an explanation.

" Yes," he said at last, a little lamely. " This

canvas was cut down for framing, and the sig-

nature was thrown so close to the edge that the

frame conceals the name." He paused, then

added, quietly: "I have kept my promise of

silence, but now — do you want to hear of him? "

She looked up — then shook her head, reso-

lutely.

" No," she said.

254

CHAPTER XVI

Late one evening in the cafe beneath the

Elysee Palace Hotel, a tall man of something

like thirty-five, though aged to the seeming of

a bit more, sat over his brandy and soda and the

perusal of a packet of letters. He wore travel-

ing dress, and, though the weather had hardly

the bitterness to warrant it, a fur-trimmed great-

coat fell across the empty chair at his side. It

was not yet late enough for the gayety that be-

gins with midnight, and the place was conse-

quently uncrowded. The stranger had left a

taxicab at the door a few minutes before, and,

without following his luggage into the office, he

had gone directly to the cafe, to glance over

his mail before being assigned to a room.

The man was tall and almost lean. Had

Steele entered the cafe at that moment, he

would have rushed over to the seated figure, and

grasped a hand with a feeling that his quest

had ended, then, on second sight, he would have

drawn back, incredulous and mystified. This

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

guest lacked no feature that Robert Saxon

possessed. His eyes held the same trace of the

dreamer, though a close scrutiny showed also a

hard glitter — his dreams were different. The

hand that held the letter was marked front and

back, though a narrow inspection would have

shown the scar to be a bit more aggravated,

more marked with streaked wrinkles about the

palm. He and the American painter were as

identical as models struck from one die in the

lines and angles that make face and figure. Yet,

in this man, there was something foreign and

alien to Saxon, a difference of soul-texture.

Saxon was a being of flesh, this man a statue of

chilled steel.

The envelope he had just cast upon the table

fell face upward, and the waiting gar con could

hardly help observing that it was addressed to

Senor George Carter, care of a steamship

agency in the Rue Scribe.

. As Carter read the letter it had contained,

his brows gathered first in great interest, then

in surprise, then in greater interest and greater

surprise.

11 There has been a most strange occurrence

256

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

here," said the writer, who dated his communica-

tion from Puerto Frio, and wrote in Spanish.

" Just before the revolution broke, a man ar-

rived who was called Robert A. Saxon. He

was obviously mistaken for you by the govern-

ment and was taken into custody, but released

on the interference of his minister. The like-

ness was so remarkable that I was myself de-

ceived and consequently astounded you should

make so bold as to return. He, however, es-

tablished a clean bill of health and that very

fact has suggested to me an idea which I think

will likewise commend itself to you, amigo mio.

That I am speaking only from my sincere in-

terest irt you, you need not question when you

consider that I have kept you advised through

these years of matters here and have divulged

to no soul your whereabouts. This man left at

once, but the talk spread rapidly in confidential

circles than an Americano had come who was

the double of yourself. Some men even con-

tended that it was really you, and that it was

you also who betrayed the plans of Vegas to

the government, but that scandal is not cred-

ited. Most of those who are well informed

257

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

Know that the traitor was one whom we trusted,

a man who in your day was on the side of the

established government. That man is now in

high influence by reason of playing the Judas,

and it may be that he will make an effort to

secure your extradition. Embezzlement, you

know, is not a political offense, and he still

holds a score against you. You know to whom

I refer. That is why I warn you. You have

a double and your double has a clean record.

For a time if there is no danger of crossing

tracks with him, I should advise that you be

Seiior Saxon instead of Senor Carter. This

should be safe enough since Seiior Saxon sailed

on the day after his arrival for North Amer-

ica. I have the felicity to inscribe myself," etc.,

etc. A dash served as a signature, but

Carter knew the writing, and was satisfied. For

a time, he sat in deep reverie, then, rising, took

up his coat, and went to the door. His stride

was precisely the stride of Robert Saxon.

At the desk above, he discussed apartments.

Having found one that suited his taste, he signed

the guest-card with the name of Robert Saxon,

and inquired as to the hour of departure of

258

THE KEY TO YESTERDAYi

trains for Calais on the following morning. He

volunteered the information that he was leav-

ing then for London. True to his word, on the

next day he left the hotel in a taximeter cab

which turned down the Champs Elysees.

When it was definitely settled that Duska and

her aunt were to go to Europe, Steele conceived

a modification of the plans, to which only after

much argument and persuasion and even a

touch of deception he won the girl's consent.

The object of his amendment was secretly to

give him a chance to arrive first on the scene,

accomplish what he could of search, and be pre-

pared with fore-knowledge to stand as a buffer

between Duska and the first shock of any ill tid-

ings. Despite his persistent optimism of argu-

ment, the man was far from confident. The

plan was that the two ladies should embark for

Genoa, and go from there to Paris by rail, while

he should economize days by hurrying over the

northern ocean track. Duska chafed at the de-

lay involved, but Steele found ingenious argu-

ments. The tramp steamer, he declared, with

its roundabout course, would be slow, and it

259

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

would be better for him to be armed against

their coming with such facts as he could gather,

in order that he might be a more effective guide.

Possibly, he argued, the tramp ship had gone

by way of the Madeiras, and might soon be in

the harbor of Funchal. If she took the south-

erly track, she could go at once by a steamer

that would give her a day there, and, armed

with letters he would send to the consulate, this

contingency could be probed, leaving him free

to work at the other end. If he learned any-

thing first, she would learn of it at once by wire-

less.

So, at last, he stood on a North River pier,

and saw the girl waving her good-by across the

rail, until the gap of churning water had

widened and blurred the faces on the deck.

Then, he turned and hastened to make his own

final arrangements for sailing by the Maure-

tanla on the following day.

In Havre, he found himself utterly baffled.

He haunted the water-front, and browbeat the

agents, all to no successful end.

In Paris, matters seemed to bode no better

results. He first exhausted the more probable

260

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

points. Saxon's agent, the commhsaire de

police, the consulate, the hospitals — he even

made a melancholy visit to the grewsome build-

ing where the morgue squats behind Notre

Dame. Then he began the almost endless round

of hotels. His " taxi " sped about through

the swift, seemingly fluid currents of traffic, as a

man in a hurry can go only in Paris, the fric-

tionless. The town was familiar to him in

most of its aspects, and he was able to work with

the readiness and certainty of one operating in

accustomed haunts, commanding the tongue

and the methods. At last, he learned of the

registry at the Elysee Palace Hotel. He ques-

tioned the clerk, and that functionary readily

enough gave him the description of the gentle-

man who had so inscribed himself. It was a

description of the man he sought. Steele fell

into one grave error. He did not ask to see

the signature itself. " Where had Monsieur

Saxon gone? To London. Certainment, he

had taken all his luggage with him. No, he

had not spoken of returning to Paris. Yes,

monsieur seemed in excellent health."

So, Steele turned his search to London, and in

261

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

London found himself even more hopelessly

mixed in baffling perplexity. He had learned

only one thing, and that one thing filled him

with vague alarm. Saxon had apparently been

here. He had been to all seeming sane and

well, and had given his own name. His conduct

was inexplicable. It was inconceivable that he

should have failed to communicate with Duska.

Steele cabled to America, thinking Saxon might

have done so since their departure. Nothing

had been heard at home.

Late in the afternoon on the day of his ar-

rival in London, Steele went for a walk, hoping

that before he returned some clew would occur

to him, upon which he could concentrate his

efforts. His steps wandered aimlessly along

Pall Mall, and, after the usage of former habit,

carried him to a club, where past experience

told him he would meet old friends. But, at

the club door, he halted, realizing that he did

not want to meet men. He could think better

alone. So, with his foot on the stone stairs, he

wheeled abruptly, and went on to Trafalgar

Square, where once more he halted, under the

lions of the Nelson Column, and racked his

262

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

brain for any thought or hint that might be fol-

lowed to a definite end.

He stood with the perplexed air of a man

without definite objective. The square was

well-nigh empty except for a few loiterers about

the basins, and the view was clear to the eleva-

tion on the side where, at the cab-stand, waited

a row of motor " taxis " and hansoms. The

afternoon was bleak, and the solemn mono-

tone of London was graver and more forbid-

ding than usual.

Suddenly, his heart pounded with a violence

that made his chest feel like a drum. With a

sudden start, he called loudly, "Saxon! Hold

on, Saxon ! " then went at a run toward the cab-

stand.

He had caught a fleeting and astounding vis-

ion. A man, with the poise and face that he

sought, had just stepped into one of the waiting

vehicles, and given an order to the driver. Even

in his haste, Steele was too late to do anything

more than take a second cab, and shout to the

man on the box to follow the vehicle that

had just left the curb. As his "taxi" turned

into the Strand, and slurred through the mud

263

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

past the Cecil and the Savoy, he kept his eyes

strained on the cab ahead, threading its way

through the congested traffic, disappearing,

dodging, reappearing, and taxing his gaze to

the utmost. For a moment after they had both

crowded into Fleet Street, he lost it, and, as he

leaned forward, searching the jumble of traf-

fic, his own vehicle came to a halt just opposite

the Law Courts. He looked hastily out, to

see the familiar shoulders of the man he fol-

lowed disappearing beyond a street-door, un-

der the swinging " Sign of the Cock."

Tossing a half-crown to the cabman, he fol-

lowed up the stairs, and entered the room,

where the tables were almost deserted. A

group of men was sitting in one of the stalls,

deep in converse, and, though two were hidden

by the dividing partitions, Steele saw the one

figure he sought at the head of the table. The

figure bent forward in conversation, and, while

his voice was low and his words inaudible, the

Kentuckian saw that the eyes were glittering

with a hard, almost malevolent keenness. As he

came hastily forward, he caught the voice : it was

Saxon's voice, yet infinitely harder. The two

264

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

companions were strangers of foreign aspect,

and they were listening attentively, though one

face wore a sullen scowl.

Steele came over, and dropped his hand on

the shoulder of the man he had pursued.

" Bob ! " he exclaimed, then halted.

The three faces looked up simultaneously,

and in all was displeasure for the abrupt inter-

ruption of a conversation evidently intended for

no outside ears. Each expression was blank

and devoid of recognition, and, as the tall man

rose to his feet, his face was blanker than the

others.

Then, with the greater leisure for scrutiny,

Steele realized his mistake. For a time, he

stood dumfounded at the marvelous resem-

blance. He knew without asking that this man

was the double who had brought such a tangle

into his friend's life. He bowed coldly.

" I apologize/' he explained, shortly. " I mis-

took this gentleman for someone else."

The three men inclined their heads stiffly, and

the Kentuckian, dejected by his sudden reverse

from apparent success to failure, turned on his

heel, and left the place. It had not, of course,

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

occurred to him to connect the appearance of his

snarler of Saxon's affairs with the name on the

Paris hotel-list, and he was left more baffled

than if he had known only the truth, in that he

had been thrown upon a false trail.

The Kentuckian joined Mrs. Horton and her

niece in Genoa on their arrival. As he met the

hunger in the girl's questioning eyes, his heart

sickened at the meagerness of his news. He

could only say that Paris had divulged nothing,

and that a trip to London had been equally

fruitless of result. He did not mention the fact

that Saxon had registered at the hotel. That

detail he wished to spare her.

She listened to his report, and at its end said

only, " Thank you," but he knew that something

must be done. A woman who could let herself

be storm-tossed by grief might ride safely out

of such an affair when the tempest had beaten

itself out, but she, who merely smiled more

sadly, would not have even the relief that comes

of surrender to tears.

At Milan, there was a wait of several hours.

Steele insisted on the girl's going with him for

a drive. At a picture-exhibition, they stopped.

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

" Somehow," said Steele, " I feel that where

there are paintings there may be clews. Shall

we go in? "

The girl listlessly assented, and they entered

a gallery, which they found already well filled.

Steele was the artist, and, once in the presence

of great pictures, he must gnaw his way along

a gallery wall as a rat gnaws its way through

cheese, devouring as he went, seeing only that

which was directly before him. The girl's eyes

ranged more restlessly.

Suddenly, Steele felt her clutch his arm.

" George ! " she breathed in a tense whisper.

" George ! "

He followed her impulsively pointed finger,

and further along, as the crowd of spectators

opened, he saw, smiling from a frame on the

wall, the eyes and lips of the girl herself. Un-

der the well-arranged lights, the figure stood

out as though it would leave its fixed place on

the canvas and mingle with the human beings

below, hardly more lifelike than itself.

"The portrait!" exclaimed Steele, breath-

lessly. " Come, Duska ; that may develop some-

thing."

267

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

As they anxiously approached, they saw above

the portrait another familiar canvas: a land-

scape presenting a stretch of valley and check-

ered flat, with hills beyond, and a sky tuneful

with the spirit of a Kentucky June.

Then, as they came near enough to read the

labels, Steele drew back, startled, and his brows

darkened with anger.

11 My God ! " he breathed.

The girl standing at his elbow read on a

brass tablet under each frame, " Frederick

Marston, pnxt."

"What does it mean?" she indignantly de-

manded, looking at the man whose face had be-

come rigid and unreadable.

„ " It means they have stolen his pictures ! " he

replied, shortly. " It means infamous thievery

at least, and I'm afraid — " In his anger and

surprise, he had almost forgotten to whom he

was speaking. Now, with realization, he bit

off his utterance.

She was standing very straight.

"You needn't be afraid to tell me," she said

quietly; "I want to know."

" I'm afraid," said Steele, " it means foul

268

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

play. Of course/' he added in a moment,

" Marston himself is not a party to the fraud.

It's conceivable that his agent, this man St.

John, has done this in Marston's absence. I

must get to Paris and see."

269

CHAPTER XVII

In the compartment of the railway car-

riage, Steele was gazing fixedly at the lace

" tidy ' on the cushioned back of the opposite

seat. His brows were closely knit in thought.

He was evolving a plan.

Duska sat with her elbow on the sill of the

compartment window, her chin on her gloved

hand, her eyes gazing out, vague and unseeing.

Yet, she loved beauty, and just outside the panes

there was beauty drawn to a scale of grandeur.

They were climbing, behind the double-

header of engines, up where it seemed that one

could reach out and touch the close-hanging

clouds, into tunnels and out of tunnels, through

St. Gothard's Pass and on where the Swiss

Alps reachel up into the fog that veiled

the summits. The mountain torrents came

roaring down, to beat their green water into

swirling foam, and dash over the lower rocks

like frenzied mill-races. Her eyes did not

270

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

wake to a sparkle at sight of the quaint chalets

which seemed to stagger under huge roof slabs

of rugged slate. She did not even notice how

they perched high on seemingly unattainable

crags like stranded arks on Helvetian Ara-

rats.

Each tunnel was the darkness between

changed tableaux, and the mouth of each offered

a new and more wonderful picture. The car-

windows framed glimpses, of Lake Como, Lake

Lugano, and valleys far beneath where villages

were only a jumble of toy blocks; yet, all these

things did not change the utter weariness of

Duska's eyes where enthusiasm usually dwelt,

or tempt Steele's fixity of gaze from the lace

" tidy."

At Lucerne, his thinking found expression in

a lengthy telegram to Paris. The Milan ex-

hibit had opened up a new channel for specula-

tion. If Saxon's pictures were being pirated

and sold as Marston's, there was no one upon

whom suspicion would fall more naturally than

the unscrupulous St. John, Marston's factor in

Paris. Steele vaguely remembered the English-

man with his petty pride for his stewardship,

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

though his own art life had lain in circles that

rarely intercepted that of the Marston cult even

at its outer rim. If this fraud were being prac-

ticed, its author was probably swindling both

artists, and the appearance of either of them in

Paris might drive St. John to desperate means

of self-protection.

The conversion of the rooms formerly occu-

pied by Marston into a school had been St.

John's doing. This atelier was in the house

where St. John himself lived, and the Kentuck-

ian knew that, unless he had moved his lodg-

ings, he could still be found there, as could the

very minor " academy " of Marston-idolizers,

with their none-too-exalted instructor, Jean

Hautecoeur.

At all events, it was to this address that Steele

directed his message. Its purport was to in-

form St. John that Americans, who had only a

short stay in Paris, were anxious to procure a

Marston of late date, and to summon him to

the Hotel Palais d'Orsay for the day of their

arrival there.

When they reached the hotel, he told the girl

of his plan, suggesting that it might be best for

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him to have this interview with the agent alone,

but admitting that, if she insisted on being pres-

ent, it was her right. She elected to hear the

conversation, and, when St. John arrived, he

was conducted to the sitting-room of Mrs. Hor-

ton's suite.

Pleased with the prospect of remunerative

sales, Marston's agent made his entrance jaunt-

ily. The shabbiness of the old days had been

put by. He was now sprucely clothed, and in

his lapel he wore a bunch of violets.

His thin, dissipated face was adorned with

a rakishly trimmed mustache and Vandyke of

gray which still held a fading trace of its erst-

while sandy red. His eyes were pale and rest-

less as he stood bowing at the door. The

afternoon was waning, and the lights had not

yet been turned on.

"Mr. Steele ?" he inquired.

Steele nodded.

St. John looked expectantly toward the girl

in the shadow, as though awaiting an introduc-

tion, which was not forthcoming. As he looked,

he seemed to grow suddenly nervous and ill-at-

ease.

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"You are Mr. Marston's agent, I believe?' 1

Steele spoke crisply.

" I have had that honor since Mr. Marston

left Paris some years ago. You know, doubt-

less, that the master spends his time in foreign

travel." The agent spoke with a touch of self-

importance.

" I want you to deliver to me here the por-

trait and the landscape now on exhibition at

Milan," ordered the American.

" It will be difficult — perhaps expensive — but

I think 't may be possible." St. John spoke

dubiously.

Steele's eyes narrowed.

" I am not requesting," he announced, " I am

ordering."

" But those canvases, my dear sir, represent

the highest note of a master's work!" began

St. John, almost indignantly. " They are the

perfection of the art of the greatest living

painter, and you direct me to procure them as

though they were a grocer's staple on a shelf!

Already, they are as good as sold. One does

not have to peddle Marston's canvases ! "

Steele walked over to the door, and, planting

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his back against its panels, folded his arms.

His voice was deliberate and dangerous :

" It's not worth while to bandy lies with you.

We both know that those pictures are from the

brush of Robert Saxon. We both know that

you have bought them at the price of a pupil's

work, and mean to sell them at the price of the

master's. I shall be in a position to prove the

swindle, and to hand you over to the courts."

St John had at the first words stiffened with

a sudden flaring of British wrath under his gray

brows. As he listened, the red flush of anger

faded to the coward's pallor.

"That is not all," went on Steele. "We

both know that Mr. Saxon came to Paris a

short while ago. For him to learn the truth

meant your unmasking. He disappeared. We

both know whose interests were served by that

disappearance. You will produce those can-

vases, and you will produce Mr. Saxon within

twenty-four hours, or you will face not only ex-

posure for art-piracy, but prosecution for what

is more serious."

As he listened, St. John's face betrayed not

only fear, but also a slowly dawning wonder

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

that dilated his vague pupils. Steele, keenly

reading the face, as he talked, knew that the

surprise was genuine.

"As God is my witness," avowed the Eng-

lishman, earnestly, " if Mr. Saxon is in Paris,

or in Europe, I know nothing of it."

" That," observed Steele dryly, " will be a

matter for you to prove."

" No, no ! " The Englishman's voice was

charged with genuine terror, and the hand that

he raised in pleading protest trembled. His

carefully counterfeited sprightliness of guise

dropped away, and left him an old man, much

broken.

" I will tell you the whole story," he went

on. " It's a miserable enough tale without im-

puting such evil motives as you suggest. It's

a shameful confession, and I shall hold back

nothing. The pictures you saw are Saxon's

pictures. Of course, I knew that. Of course,

I bought them at what his canvases would bring

with the intention of selling them at the

greater price commanded by the greater painter.

I knew that the copyist had surpassed the mas-

ter, but the world did not know. I knew that

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

Europe would never admit that possible. I

knew that, if once I palmed off this imitation

as genuine, all the art-world would laugh to

scorn the man who announced the fraud. Mr.

Saxon himself could not hope to persuade the

critics that he had done those pictures, once

they were accepted as Marston's. The art-

world is led like sheep. It believes there is

one Marston, and that no other can counter-

feit him. And I knew that Marston himself

could not expose me, because I know that

Marston is dead." The man was ripping out

his story in labored, detached sentences.

Steele looked up with astonished eyes. The

girl sat listening, with her lips parted.

" You see — " the Englishman's voice was im-

passioned in its bitterness — " I am not shield-

ing myself. I am giving you the unrelieved

truth. When I determined the fact of his

death, I devised a scheme. I did not at that

time know that this American would be able

to paint pictures that could be mistaken for

Marston's. Had I known it, I should have en-

deavored to ascertain if he would share the

scheme with me. Collaborating in the fraud,

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

we could have levied fortunes from the art

world, whereas in his own name he must have

painted a decade more to win the verdict of

his true greatness. I was Marston's agent. I

am Marston's father-in-law. When I speak, it

is as his ambassador. Men believe me. My

daughter — " the man's voice broke — " my

daughter lies on her death-bed. For her, there

are a few months, perhaps only a few weeks,

left of life. I have provided for her by trad-

ing on the name and greatness of her husband.

If you turn me over to the police, you will kill

her. For myself, it would be just, but I am

not guilty of harming Mr. Saxon, and she is

guilty of nothing." The narrator halted in his

story, and covered his face with his talon-like

fingers. St. John was not a strong man. The

metal of his soul was soft and without temper.

He dropped into a chair, and for a while, as

his auditors waited in silence, gave way to his

emotion.

11 1 tell you," he groaned, " I have at least

been true to one thing in life. I have loved

my child. I don't want her punished for my

offenses."

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

Suddenly, he rose and faced the girl.

" I don't know you," he said passionately,

" but I am an old man. I am an outcast — a

derelict! I was not held fit for an introduc-

tion, but I appeal to you. Life can drive a

man to anything. Life has driven me to most,

things, but not to all. I knew that any day

might bring my exposure. If it had come after

my daughter's death, I would have been satis-

fied. I have for months been watching her die

— wanting her to live, yet knowing that her

death and my disgrace were racing together."

He paused, then added in a quaking voice:

" There were days when I might have been

introduced to a woman like you, many years

ago."

Duska was not fitted by nature to officiate

at " third degree " proceedings. As she looked

back into the beseeching face, she saw only that

it was the face of an old man, broken and ter-

rified, and that even through its gray terror it

showed the love of which he talked.

Her hand fell gently on his shoulder.

" I am sorry — about your daughter," she

said, softly.

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

St. John straightened, and spoke more stead-

ay.

"The story is not ended. In those days, it

was almost starvation. No one would buy

my pictures. No one would buy her verse.

The one source of revenue we might have

had was what Marston sought to give us, but

that she would not accept. She said she had

not married him for alimony. He tried often

and in many ways, but 1 she refused. Then,

he left. He had done that before. No one

wondered. After his absence had run to two

years, I was in Spain, and stumbled on a

house, a sort of pension, near Granada, where

he had been painting under an assumed name,

as was his custom. Then, he had gone again —

no one knew where. But he had left behind

him a great stack of finished canvases. Mon

dleu, how feverishly the man must have

worked during those months — for he had then

been away from the place almost a year. The

woman who owned the house did not know the

value of the pictures. She only knew that he

had ordered his rooms reserved, and had not

returned, and that rental and storage were due

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

her. I paid the charges, and took the pictures.

Then, I investigated. My investigations proved

that my surmise as to his death was correct.

I was cautious in disposing of the pictures.

They were like the diamonds of Kimberley, too

precious to throw upon the market in sufficient

numbers to glut the art-appetite of the world.

I hoarded them. I let them go one or two at

a time, or in small consignments. He had al-

ways sold his pictures cheaply. I was afraid

to raise the price too suddenly. From time to

time, I pretended to receive letters from the

painter. I had then no definite plan. When

they had reached the highest point of fame and

value, I would announce his death. But, mean-

while, I discovered the work young Saxon was

doing in America. I followed his development,

and I hesitated to announce the death of Mars-

ton. An idea began to dawn on me in a nebu-

lous sort of way, that somehow this man's work

might be profitably utilized by substitution. At

first, it was very foggy — my idea — but I felt

that in it was a possibility, at all events enough

to be thought over- — and so I did not announce

the death of Marston. Then, I realized that

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

I could supplement the Marston supply with

these canvases. I was timid. Such sales must

be cautiously made, and solely to private in-

dividuals who would remove the pictures from

public view. At last, I found these two

which you saw at Milan. I felt that Mr.

Saxon could never improve them. I would

take the chance, even though I had to exhibit

them publicly. The last of the Marstons, save

a few, had been sold. I could realize enough

from these to take my daughter to Cairo, where

she might have a chance to live. I bought the

canvases in New York in person. They have

never been publicly shown save in Milan; they

were there but for a day only, and were not to

be photographed. When you sent for me, I

thought it was an American Croesus, and that

I had succeeded." St. John had talked rap-

idly and with agitation. Now, as he paused, he

wiped the moisture from his forehead with his

pocket-handkerchief.

" I have planned the thing with the utmost

care. I have had no confederates. I even col-

lected a few of Mr. Marston's earlier and less

effective pictures, and exhibited them beside

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

Marston's best, so the public might com-

pare and be convinced in its idea that the

boundary between the master and the follower

was the boundary between the sublime and the

merely meritorious. That is all. For a

year I have hesitated. When I entered this

room, I realized my danger. Even in the grow-

ing twilight, I recognized the lady as the orig-

inal of the portrait. 5 *

" But didn't you know," questioned the girl,

" that sooner or later the facts must become

known — that at any time Mr. Saxon might

come to Europe, and see one of his own pictures

as I saw the portrait of myself in Milan?"

St. John bowed his head.

" I was desperate enough to take that

chance," he answered, " though I safeguarded

myself in many ways. My sales would invari-

ably be to purchasers who would take their pic-

tures to private galleries. I should only have

to dispose of a few at a time. Mr. Saxon

has sold many pictures in Paris under his own

name, and does not know who bought them.

Selling them as Marston's, though somewhat

more complicated, might go on for some time

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

t — and my daughter's life can not last long.

After that, nothing matters."

"Have you actually sold any Saxons as

Marstons heretofore?" demanded Steele.

St. John hesitated for a moment, and then

nodded his head.

"Possibly, a half-dozen," he acknowledged,

" to private collectors, where I felt it was safe."

" I have no wish to be severe," Steele spoke

quietly, " but those two pictures we must have.

I will pay you a fair profit. For the time, at

least, the matter shall go no further."

St. John bowed with deep gratitude.

" They shall be delivered," he said.

Steele stood watching St. John bow himself

out, all the bravado turned to obsequiousness.

Then, the Kentuckian shook his head.

"We have unearthed that conspiracy," he

said, " but we have learned nothing. To-mor-

row, I shall visit the studio where the Marston

enthusiasts work, and see if there is anything to

be learned there."

"And I shall go with you," the girl promptly

declared.

284

CHAPTER XVIII

On an unimportant cross street which cuts

at right angles the Boulevard St. Michel, that

axis of art-student Paris, stands an old and

somewhat dilapidated house, built, after the

same fashion as all its neighbors, about a court,

and entered by a door over which the concierge

presides. This house has had other years in

which it stood pretentious, with the pride of a

mansion, among its peers. Now, its splendor

is tarnished, its respectability is faded, and the

face it presents to the street wears the gloom

that comes of past glory, heightened, perhaps,

by the dark-spiritedness of many tenants who

have failed to enroll their names among the

great.

Yet, for all its forbidding frown, its front

bespeaks a certain consciousness of lingering

dignity. A plate, set in the door-case, an-

nounces that the great Marston painted here a

few scant years ago, and here still that more-

or-less-distinguished instructor, Jean Haute-

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

coeur, tells his pupils in the second-floor atelier

how it was done.

He was telling them now. The model, who

had been posed as, " Aphrodite Rising from

the Foam," was resting. She sat on the dilap-

idated throne amid a circle of easels. A

blanket was thrown about her, from the folds

of which protruded a bare and shapely arm,

the hand holding lightly between two fingers

the cigarette with which she beguiled her re-

cess.

The master, looking about on the many in-

dustrious, if not intellectual, faces, was discours-

ing on Marston's feeling for values.

"He did not learn it," declared M. Haute-

coeur: "he was born with it. He did not ac-

quire it: he evolved it. A faulty value

caused him pain as a false note causes pain to

the true musician." Then, realizing that this

was dangerous doctrine from the lips of one

who was endeavoring to instill the quality into

others, born with less gifted natures, he has-

tened to amend. " Yet, other masters, less

facile, have gained by study what they lacked

by heritage."

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The room was bare except for its accessories

of art. A few well-chosen casts hung about

the walls. Many unmounted canvases were

stacked in the corners, the floors were chalk-

marked where easel-positions had been re-

corded; charcoal fragments crunched underfoot

when one walked across the boards. From

the sky-light — for the right of the building had

only two floors — fell a flood of afternoon light,

filtering through accumulated dust and soot.

The door upon the outer hall was latched. The

students, bizarre and unkempt in the bohemian-

ism of their cult, mixed colors on their palettes

as they listened. In their little world of nar-

row horizons, the discourse was like a prophet's

eulogy of a god.

As the master, his huge figure somewhat gro-

tesque in its long, paint-smeared blouse and cap,

stood delivering his lecture with much elo-

quence of gesture, he was interrupted by a rap

on the door. Jacques du Bois, whose easel

stood nearest the threshold, reluctantly took his

pipe from his teeth, and turned the knob with

a scowl for the interruption. For a moment,

he stood talking through the slit with a gentle-

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

man in the hall-way, his eyes meanwhile study-

ing with side-glances the lady who stood behind

the gentleman. Then, he bowed and closed the

door.

" Someone wishes a word with M. Haute-

coeur," he announced.

The master stepped importantly into the hall,

and Steele introduced himself. M. Hautecoeur

declared that he quite well remembered mon-

sieur and his excellent painting. He bowed to

mademoiselle with unwieldly gallantry.

" Mr. Robert Saxon," began the American,

" is, I believe, one of the most distinguished of

the followers of Frederick Marston. Miss

Filson and I are both friends of Mr. Saxon,

and, while in Paris, we wished to visit the

shrine of the Marston school. We have taken

the liberty of coming here. Is it possible to

admit us? "

The instructor looked cautiously into the

atelier, satisfied himself that the model had not

resumed her throne and nudity, then flung back

the door with a ceremonious sweep. Steele,

familiar with such surroundings, cast only a

casual glance about the interior. It was like

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

many of the smaller schools in which he had

himself painted. To the girl, who had never

seen a life-class at work, it was stepping into a

new world. Her eyes wandered about the

walls, and came back to the faces.

" I have never had the honor of meeting

your friend, Monsieur Saxon," declared the in-

structor in English. " But his reputation has

crossed the sea ! I have had the pleasure of

seeing several of his canvases. There is none

of us following in the footsteps of Marston

who would not feel his life crowned with high

success, had he come as close as Saxon to grasp-

ing the secret that made Marston Marston.

Your great country should be proud of him."

Steele smiled.

" Our country could also claim Marston.

You forget that, monsieur."

The instructor spread his hands in a depre-

cating gesture.

" Ah, mon ami, that is debatable. True, your

country gave him birth, but it was France that

gave him his art."

" Did you know," suggested Steele, " that

some of the unsigned Saxon pictures have

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

passed competent critics as the work of Mars-

ton? "

Hautecoeur lifted his heavy brows.

"Impossible, monsieur," he protested; "quite

impossible ! It is the master's boast that

any man who can pass a painting as a Mars-

ton has his invitation to do so. He never

signs a canvas — it is unnecessary — his stroke

— his treatment — these are sufficient signature.

I do not belittle the art of your friend," he has-

tened to explain, "but there is a certain — what

shall I say? — a certain individualism about the

work of this greatest of moderns which is in-

imitable. One must indeed be much the novice

to be misled. Yet, I grant you there was one

quality the master himself did not formerly

possess which the American grasped from the

beginning."

" His virility of touch? " inquired Steele.

" Just so ! Your man's art is broader, per-

haps stronger. That difference is not merely

one of feeling: it is more. The American's

style was the outgrowth of the bigness of your

vast spaces — of the broad spirit of your great

country — of the pride that comes to a man in

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

the consciousness of physical power and cur-

rents of red blood ! Marston was the creature

of a confined life, bounded by walls. He was

self-absorbed, morbid, anemic. To be the per-

fect artist, he needed only to be the perfect ani-

mal ! He did not understand that. He dis-

liked physical effort. He felt that something

eluded him, and he fought for it with brush and

mahlstick. Fie should have used the Alpinstock

or the snow-shoe. " Hautecoeur was talking

with an enthused fervor that swept him into

metaphor.

" Yet — " Steele was secretly sounding his way

toward the end he sought — " yet, the latter pic-

tures of Marston have that same quality."

" Precisely. I would in a moment more have

spoken of that. I have my theory. Since

leaving Paris, I believe Marston has gone per-

haps into the Alps, perhaps into other coun-

tries, and built into himself the thing we urged

upon him — the robust vision."

The girl spoke for the first time, putting,

after the fashion of the uninitiated, the ques-

tion which the more learned hesitate to pro-

pound :

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

"What is this thing you call the secret?

What is it that makes the difference?"

" Ah, mademoiselle, if I knew that ! " The

instructor sighed as he smiled. " How says the

English Fitzgerald? 'A hair perhaps divides

the false and true.' Had Marston had the

making of the famous epigram, he would not

have said he mixed his paints with brains.

Rather would he have confessed, he mixed

them with ideals."

" But I fear we delay the posing," suggested

Steele, moving, with sudden apprehension,

toward the door.

" I assure you, no ! " prevaricated the teacher,

with instant readiness. " It is a wearying

pose. The model will require a longer rest

than the usual. Will not mademoiselle per-

mit me to show her those Marston canvases we

are fortunate enough to have here? Perhaps,

she will then understand why I find it impos-

sible to answer her question."

When Captain Paul Harris had set his course

to France with a slow, long voyage ahead, his

shanghaied passenger had gone from stunned

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

unconsciousness into the longer and more com-

plicated helplessness of brain-fever. There

was a brushing of shoulders with death. There

were fever and unconsciousness and delirium,

and through each phase Dr. Cornish, late of

the Foreign Legion, brought his patient with

studious care — through all, that is, save the

brain fog. Then, as the vessel drew to the end

of the voyage, the physical illness appeared to

be conquered, yet the awakening had been only

that of nerves and bodily organs. The center

of life, the mind, was as remote and incommuni-

cable as though the thought nerves had been

paralyzed. Saxon was like a country whose

outer life is normal, but whose capital is cut off

and whose government is supine. The physi-

cian, studying with absorbed interest, struggled

to complete the awakening. Unless it should be

complete, it were much better that the man had

died, for, when the vessel dropped her anchor

at Havre, the captain led ashore a man who in

the parlance of the peasants was a poor " in-

nocent," a human blank-book in a binding once

handsome, now worn, with nothing inscribed

on its pages.

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

For a time, the physician and skipper were

puzzled as to the next step. The physician

was confident that the eyes, which gazed blankly

out from a face now bearded and emaciated,

would eventually regain their former light of

intelligence. He did not believe that this help-

less creature — who had been, when he first saw

him in Puerto Frio, despite blood-discolored

face and limp unconsciousness, so perfect a fig-

ure of a man — had passed into permanent dark-

ness. The light would again dawn, possibly

at first in fitful waverings and flashes through

the fog. If only there could be some familiar

scene or thing to suggest the past! But, unfor-

tunately, all that lay across the world. So, they

decided to take him to Paris, and ensconce him

in Captain Harris' modest lodgings in the Rue

St. Jacques, and, inasmuch as the captain's lodg-

ings were shared by no one, and his landlady

was a kindly soul, Dr. Cornish also resolved to

go there. For a few weeks, the sailor was to

be home from the sea, and meant to spend his

holiday in the capital. As for the physician, he

was just now unattached. He had hoped to be

in charge of a government's work of health

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

and sanitation. Instead, he was idle, and could

afford to remain and study an unusual condi-

tion. He certainly could not abandon this

anonymous creature whom fate had thrust

upon his keeping. Now, six weeks after his

accident, Saxon sat alone in the modest apart-

ment of the lodgings in the Rue St. Jacques.

Since his arrival in Paris, the walls of that room

and the court in the center of the house had been

the boundaries of his world. He had not seen

beyond them. He had been physically weak

and languid, mentally void. They had at-

tempted to persuade him to move about, but his

apathy had been insuperable. Sometimes, he

wandered about the court like a small child.

He had no speech. Often, he fingered a rusty

key as a baby fingers a rattle. On the day that

Steele and Duska had gone to the academy of

M. Hautecoeur, Dr. Cornish and Paul Harris

had left the lodgings for a time, and Saxon sat

as'usual at a window, looking absently out on

the court.

In its center stood a stone jardiniere, now

empty. About it was the flagged area, also

empty. In front was the street-door — closed.

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

Saxon looked out with the opaque stare of

pupils that admit no images to the brain. They

were as empty as the stone jar. Possibly, the

sun, borrowing some of the warmth of the

spent summer, made a vague appeal to animal

instinct; possibly, the first ray of mental dawn

was breaking. At all events, Saxon rose

heavily, and made his way into the area.

At last, he wandered to the street-door. It hap-

pened to be closed, but the concierge stood near.

u Cordon? " inquired the porter, with a smile.

It is the universal word with which lodgers in

such abodes summon the guardian of the gate

to let them in. or out.

Saxon looked up, and across the hitherto un-

broken vacancy of his pupils flickered a dis-

turbed, puzzled tremor of mental groping.

He opened his thin lips, closed them again,

then smiled, and said with perfect distinctness:

"Cordon, s'il vous plait"

The concierge knew only that monsieur was

an invalid. In his next question was nothing

more than simple Gallic courtesy.

" Est-ce que monsieur va mieux aujour

d'hui?"

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

Once more, Saxon's lips hesitated, then me-

chanically moved.

"Oui, merci" he responded.

The man who found himself standing aim-

lessly on the sidewalk of the Rue St. Jacques,

was a man clothed in an old and ill-fitting suit

of Captain Harris' clothes. He was long-

haired, hollow-cheeked and bearded like a pi-

rate. At last, he hesitatingly turned and wan-

dered away at random. About him lay Paris

and the world, but Paris and the world were

to him things without names or meaning.

His unguided steps carried him to the banks

of the Seine, and finally he stood on the island,

gazing without comprehension at the square

towers of Notre Dame, his brows strangely

puckered as his eyes picked out the carvings of

the " Last Judgment " "and' the Galerie des

Rots.

He shook his head dully, and, turning once

more, went on without purpose until at the end

of much wandering he again halted. This time,

he had before him the Pantheon's entrance, and

confronting him on its pedestal sat a human

figure in bronze. It was Rodin's unspeakably

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

[melancholy conception, " le Penseur" and it

might have stood for Saxon's self as it half-

crouched with limbs tense and brows drawn in,

in the agony of brooding thought-travail.

Then, Saxon's head came up, and into his eyes

stole a confused groping, as though reason's

tentacles were struggling out blindly for some-

thing upon which to lay hold. With such a

motion perhaps, the prehistoric man-creature

may have thrown up his chin at the bursting

into being of thought's first coherent germ. But

from " le Penseur" Saxon turned away with a

futile shake of his head to resume his wander-

ings.

Finally, in a narrow cross street, he halted

once more, and looked about him with a con-

sciousness of vast weariness. He had traversed

the length of many blocks in his aimlessness,

crossing and recrossing his own course, and he

was still feeble from long days of illness and

inertia.

Suddenly, he raised his head, and his lips,

which had been half-parted in the manner of

lips not obeying a positive brain, closed in a

firm line that seemed to make his chin and jaw

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

take on a stronger contour. He drew his

brows together as he stood studying the door

before him, and his pupils were deeply vague

and perplexed. But it was a different perplex-

ity. The vacuity was gone.

Automatically, one thin hand went into the

trousers-pocket, and came out clutching a rusty

key. For another moment, he stood regarding

the thing, turning it over in his fingers. Then,

he laughed, and drew back his sagging shoul-

ders. With the gesture, he threw away all im-

becility, and followed the inexorable call of

some impulse which he could not yet fully

understand, but which was neither vague nor

haphazard.

At that moment, Dr. Cornish, chancing to

glance up from his course a block away, stopped

dumfounded at the sight of his patient. When

he had gathered his senses, and looked again,

the patient had disappeared.

Saxon walked a few steps further, turned into

an open street-door, passed the concierge with-

out a word, and toilsomely, but with a purpose-

ful tread, mounted the narrow, ill-lighted

stairs. At the turning where strangers usually

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

stumbled, he lifted his foot clear for the longer

stride, yet he had not glanced down.

For just a moment, he paused for breath in

the hall, upon which opened several doors iden-

tical in appearance. Without hesitation, he fit-

ted the ancient key into an equally ancient lock,

opened the door, and entered.

At the click of the thrown tumbler of the

lock, some of the occupants of the place glanced

up. They saw the door swing wide, and frame

between its jambs a tall, thin man, who stood

unsteadily supporting himself against the case.

The black-bearded face was flushed with a

burning fever, but the eyes that looked out

from under the heavy brows were wide awake

and intelligent.

" But Marston will one day return to us,"

Monsieur Hautecoeur was declaring to Steele

and the girl, who, with backs to the door, were

studying a picture on the wall. " He will re-

turn, and then M

The instructor had caught the sound of the

opening door, and he half-turned his head to

cast a side glance in its direction. His words

died suddenly on his lips. His pose became

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

petrified; his features transfixed with astonish-

ment. His rigid fixity of face and figure froze

the watching students into answering tenseness.

Even the blanket-wrapped model held a freshly

lighted cigarette poised half-way to her lips.

Then, the man in the door took an unsteady

step forward, and from his trembling fingers

the key fell to the floor, where in the dead still-

ness it seemed to strike with a crash. The

girl and Steele wheeled. At that moment, the

lips of the bearded face moved, and from them

came the announcement:

"Me void, je viens d'arriver."

The voice; broke the hypnotic suspense of the

silence as a pin-point snaps a toy balloon.

Hautecoeur sprang excitedly forward.

"Marston! Marston has returned I " he

shouted, in a great voice that echoed against the

skylight.

As the man stepped forward, he staggered

slightly, and would have fallen had he not been

already folded in the giant embrace of the

lesser master.

Duska stood as white as the fresh sheets of

drawing-paper at her feet. Her fingers spas-

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

modically clenched and opened at her sides, and

from her teeth, biting into the lower lip, her

breathing came in gasps. The walls seemed to

race in circles, and it was with half-realization

that she heard Steele calling the man, wildly-

demanding recognition.

The newcomer was leaning heavily on Haute-

coeur's arm. He did not appear to notice

Steele, but his gaze met and held the girl's pal-

lid face and the intensely anguished eyes that

looked into his. For an instant, they stood fac-

ing each other, neither speaking; then, in a

voice of polite concern, the tall man said:

"Mademoiselle is ill!" There was no note

of recognition — only, the solicitous tone of any

man who sees a woman who is obviously suf-

fering.

Duska raised her chin. Her throat gave a

convulsive jerk, but she only caught her lip more

tightly between her teeth, so that a moment

later, when she spoke, there were purplish in-

dentations on its almost bloodless line.

She half-turned to Steele. Her voice was an

utterly hopeless whisper, but as steady as Mars-

ton's had been.

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

" For God's sake," she said, " take me

home ! "

At the door, they encountered the excited

physician, who stumbled against them with a

mumbled apology as he burst into the atelier.

303

CHAPTER XIX

Late that afternoon, in Mrs. Horton's

drawing-room at the Hotel Palais d'Orsay,

Steele stood at the window, his gaze almost sul-

len in the moodiness of his own ineffectual sym-

pathy. The day had grown as cheerless as

himself. Outside, across the Dual d'Orsay, a

cold rain pelted desolately into the gray water

of the Seine, and drew a wet veil across the op-

posite bank. Through the reeking mist, the

remote gray branches in the Gardens of the

Tuileries stood out starkly naked. Even the

vague masses of the Louvre seemed as forbid-

ding as the shadowy bulk of some buttressed

prison. The " taxis " slurred by through wet

streets, and those persons who were abroad

went with streaming umbrellas and hurried

steps. The raw chill of Continental hotels per-

meated the place. He knew that in the center

of the room Duska sat, her elbows resting on

the table top ; her eyes, distressfully wide, fixed

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

on the wet panes of the other window. He

knew that, if he spoke to her, her lips would

shape themselves into a pathetic smile, and her

answer would be steady. He knew that she

had given herself no luxury of outburst, but

that she had remained there, in much the same

attitude, all afternoon; sometimes, crushing her

small handkerchief ino a tight wad of lace and

linen; sometimes, opening it out and smooth-

ing it with infinite care into a tiny square upon

the table. He knew that her feet, with their

small shoes and high-arched, silk-stockinged in-

steps, twiched nervously from time to time ; that

the gallant shoulders drooped forward. These

details were pictured in his mind, and he kept

his eyes stolidly pointed toward the outer gloom

so that he might not be forced actually to see

it all again.

At last, he wheeled with a sudden gesture of

desperation, and, going across to the table,

dropped his hand over hers.

She looked up with the unchanged expression

of wide-eyed suffering that has no outlet.

" Duska, dear," he asked, " can I do any-

thing ?"

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

She shook her head, and, as she answered, it

was in a dead voice. " There is nothing to

do/'

"If I leave you, will you promise to cry?

You must cry/' he commanded.

" I can't cry," she answered, in the same ex-

pressionless flatness of tone.

" Duska, can you forgive me?" He had

moved around, and stood leaning forward with

his hands resting upon the table.

"Forgive you for what?"

" For being the author of all this hideous

calamity," he burst out with self-accusation,

" for bringing him there — for introducing

you."

She reached out suddenly, and seized his

hand.

"Don't!" she pleaded. "Do you suppose

that I would give up a memory that I have?

Why, all my world is memory now! Do you

suppose I blame you — or him? "

" You might very well blame us both. We

both knew of the possibilities, and let things

go on."

She rose, and let her eyes rest on him with

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

directness. Her voice was not angry, but very

earnest.

" That is not true," she said. " It couldn't

be helped. It was written. He told me every-

thing. He asked me to forget, and I held him

— because we loved each other. He could no

more help it than he could help being himself,

fulfilling his genius when he thought he was

following another man. There are just some

things — " she halted a moment, and shook her

head — " some things," she went on quietly,

" that are bigger than we are."

" But, now »" He stopped.

" But, now — " the quiet of her words hurt

the man more than tears could have done —

"now, his real life has claimed him — the life

that only loaned him to me."

The telephone jangled suddenly, and Steele,

whose nerves were all on edge, started violently

at the sound. Mechanically, he took up the in-

strument from its table-rack, and listened.

" Yes, this is Mr. Steele. What? Mr. St.

John? Tell him I'll see him down there — to

wait for me." Steele was about to replace the

receiver, when Duska's hand caught his wrist.

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

" No," she said quickly, " have him come

here."

"Wait. Hold the wire." The man turned

to the girl.

" Duska, you are only putting yourself on

the rack," he pleaded. " Let me see him

alone." She shook her head with the old de-

termination. " Have him come here," she re-

peated.

" Send Mr. St. John up," ordered the Ken-

tuckian.

One might have seen from his eyes that, when

Mr. St. John arrived, his reception would be

ungracious. The man felt all the stored-up

savagery born of his helpless remonstrance. It

must have some vent. Every one and every-

thing that had contributed to her misery were

alike hateful to him. Had he been able to talk

to Saxon just then, his unreasoning wrath would

have poured itself forth as readily and bit-

terly as on St. John. The sight of the agent

standing in the door a few moments later, in-

offensive, even humble, failed to molify him.

" I shall have the two pictures delivered

within the next day," ventured the Englishman.

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

Steele turned brutally on the visitor.

" Do you mean to risk remaining in Paris

now?" he demanded.

At the tone, St. John stiffened. He was hum-

ble because these people had been kind. Now,

meeting hostility, he threw off his lowly de-

meanor.

"Why, may I ask, should I leave Paris?"

There was a touch of delicately shaded defiance

in the questioning voice.

" Because, now, you must reckon with Mr.

Saxon for pirating his work! Because he may

choose to make you walk the plank."

Steele whipped out his answer in rapid, an-

gry sentences.

St. John met the eyes of the Kentuckian in-

solently.

" Pardon the suggestion that you misstate the

case," he said, softly. " I have never sold a

picture as a Marston that was not a Marston —

it would appear that unconsciously I was, after

all, honest. As for Mr. Saxon, there is, it

seems, no Mr. Saxon. That gentleman was

entirely mythical. It was an alias, if you

please."

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

It was Steele who winced now, but his retort

Was contemptuously cool :

" Do you fancy Mr. Marston will accept that

explanation? "

" Mr. Steele — " the derelict drew back his

thin shoulders, and faced the other with a glint

in the pale pupils that was an echo of the days

when he had been able to look men in the face.

" Before I became a scoundrel, sir, I was a

gentleman. My daughter is extremely ill. I

must remain with her, and take the chance as

to what Mr. Marston may choose to do. I

shall hope that he will make some allowance

for a father's desperate — if unscrupulous — ef-

fort to care for his daughter. I hope so par-

ticularly inasmuch as that daughter is also his

wife."

Steele started forward, his eyes going invol-

untarily to the girl, but she sat unflinching, ex-

cept that a sudden spasm of pain crossed the

hopelessness of her eyes. Somewhere among

Duska Filson's ancestors, there had been a stoic.

Instantly, Steele realized that it was he himself

who had brought about the needless cruelty of

that reminder. St. John had disarmed him, and

put him in the wrong.

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

" I beg your pardon, sir," he said.

" I came here," said St. John slowly, " not

only to notify you about your canvases. There

was something else. You were both very con-

siderate when I was here before. It is strange

that a man who will do dishonest things still

clings to the wish that his occasional honest mo-

tives shall not be misconstrued. I don't want

you to think that I intentionally lied to you then.

I told you Frederick Marston was dead. I be-

lieved it. Before I began this — this piracy, I

investigated, and satisfied myself on the point.

Time corroborated me. It is as though he had

arisen from the grave. That is all."

The man paused; then, looking at the girl, he

continued:

11 And Mr. Saxon — " he hesitated a moment

upon the name, but went resolutely on — " Mr.

Saxon will recover. When he wakes next, the

doctors believe, he will awake to everything.

After his violent exertion and the shock of his

partial realization, he became delirious. For

several days perhaps, he must have absolute

quiet, but he will take up a life in which there

are no empty spaces."

The girl rose, and, as she spoke, there was a

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

momentary break in her voice that led Steele

to hope for the relief of tears, but her tone

steadied itself, and her eyes remained dry.

" Mr. St. John," she said slowly, " may I go

and see — your daughter? "

For a moment, the Englishman looked at her

quietly, then tears flooded his eyes. He thought

of the message of the portrait, and, with no in-

formation except that of his own observing eyes,

he read a part at least of the situation.

" Miss Filson," he said with as simple a dig-

nity as though his name had never been tar-

nished, as though the gentleman had never de-

cayed into the derelict, "my daughter would

be happy to receive you, but she is in no condi-

tion to hear startling news. By her own wish,

we have not in seven years spoken of Mr.

Marston. She does not know that I believed

him dead, she does not know that he has re-

appeared. To tell her would endanger her

life."

" I shall not go as a bearer of news," the girl

assured him; " I shall go only as a friend of her

father's, and — because I want to."

St. John hesitatingly put out hisj hand. When

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

the girl gave him hers, he bent over it with a

catch in his voice, but a remnant of the grand

manner, and kissed her fingers in the fashion of

the old days.

Driving with Steele the next morning to St.

John's lodgings, the girl looked straight ahead

steadfastly. The rain of the night had been

forgotten, and the life of Paris glittered with

sun and brilliant abandon. Pleasure-worship

and vivacious delight seemed to lie like a spirit

of the departed summer on the boulevards.

Along the Champs Elysees, from the Place de

la Concorde to the Arc de Triomphe, flowed a

swift, continuous parade of motors, bearing in

state gaily dressed women, until the nostrils

were filled with a strangely blended odor of

gasoline and flowers. The pavement cafes and

sidewalks flashed color, and echoed laughter.

Nowhere, from the spot where the guillotine

had stood to the circle where Napoleon decreed

his arch, did there seem a niche for sorrow.

" Will you wait here to see to what he awak-

ens?" questioned Steele.

Duska shook her head.

" I have no right to wait. And yet — yet, I

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

can't go home! " She leaned toward him, im-

pulsively. " I couldn't bear going back to Ken-

tucky now," she added, plaintively; " I couldn't

bear it."

" You will go to Nice for a while," said

Steele, firmly. He had fallen into the position

of arranging their affairs. Mrs. Horton, dis-

tressed in Duska's distress, found herself help-

less to act except upon his direction.

The girl nodded, apathetically.

" It doesn't matter," she said.

Then, she looked up again.

" But I want you to stay. I want you to do

everything you can for both of them." She

paused, and her next words were spoken with

an effort: "And I don't want — I don't want

you to speak of me. I don't want you to try to

remind him."

11 He will question me," demurred Steele.

Duska's head was raised with a little gesture

of pride.

" I am not afraid," she said, " that he will

ask you anything he should not — anything that

he has not the right to ask."

314

CHAPTER XX

When he turned back, a day later, from

the turmoil of the station, from the strenuous

labor of weighing trunks, locating the compart-

ment in the train, subsidizing the guards, and,

hardest of all, saying good-bye to Duska with

a seeming or normal cheerfulness, Steele found

himself irritably out of measure with the quick-

step of Paris. Mrs. Horton and the girl were

on their way to the Riviera. He was left be-

hind to watch results; almost, it seemed to him,

to sit by and observe the post-mortem on every

hope in the lives of three people. Nice should

still be quiet. The tidal wave of " trippers "

would not for a little while sweep over its rose-

covered slopes and white beaches and dazzling

esplanades, and the place would afford the girl

at least every soothing influence that nature

could offer. That would not be much, but it

would be something.

As for himself, he felt the isolation of Paris.

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

On a desert, a man may become lonely; in deep

forests and on high mountains, he may come to

know and hate his own soul in solitude, but the

last note of aloofness, of utter exile, is that

which comes to him who looks vainly for one

face in a sea of other faces, whose small cosmos

lies in unwept and unnoticed ruin in the midst

of a giant city that moves along its indifferent

way to the time of dance-music. In the hotel,

there was the chatter of tourists. His own

tongue was prattled by men and women whose

lives seemed to revolve around the shops of the

Rue de la Paix, or whose literature was the in-

formation of the guide-books. He felt that

everyone was invading his somberness of mood

with trivialities, until, in revulsion against the

whole stage-setting of things, he had himself

and his luggage transported to the Hotel Vol-

taire, where the life about him was the simpler

life of the less pretentious quais of the Seine.

After his dejeuner, he sat for a time attempt-

ing to readjust his ideas. He had told Saxon

that he would never again speak of love to

Duska. Now, he realized how barren of hope

it would ever be for him to renew his plea. She

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

had bankrupted his heart. He had buried his

own hopes, and no one except himself had

known at what cost to himself. He had taken

his place in the niche dedicated to closest friend,

just outside the inner shrine reserved for the

one who could penetrate that far. Now, he was

in a greater distress. Now, he wanted only her

happiness, and as he had never wanted it before.

Now, he realized that the only source through

which this could come was the source that

seemed hopelessly clogged. There was no

doubt of his sincerity. Even his own intimate

questioning acquitted him of self-consideration.

Could he at that moment have had one wish

fulfilled by some magic agency of miracle, that

wish would have been that he might lead Robert

Saxon, as Robert Saxon had been, to Duska,

with all his memory and love intact, and free

from any incumbrance that might divide them.

That would have been the gift of all gifts, and

the only gift that would drive the look of heart-

hunger and despair from her eyes.

Steele was restless, and, taking up his hat, he

strolled out along the quay, and turned at last

into the Boulevard St. Michel, stretching off in

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

a broad vista of cafe-lined sidewalks. The life

of the " Boule Mich" held no attraction for

him. In his earlier days, he had known it from

the river to the Boulevard Montparnasse. He

knew its tributary streets, its lodgings, its schools

and the life which the spirit of the modern

is so rapidly revolutionizing from Bohemia's

shabby capital to a conventionalized district.

None of these things held for him the piquant

challenge of novelty.

As he passed a certain cafe, which he had

once known as the informal club of the Mars-

ton cult, he realized that here the hilarity was

more pronounced than elsewhere. The boule-

vard itself was for squares a thread, stringing

cafes like beads in a necklace. Each had its

crowd of revelers; its boisterous throng of

frowsy, velvet-jacketed, long-haired students;

its laughing models; its inevitable brooding and

despondent absintheurs sitting apart in isolated

melancholy. Yet, here at the " Chat Noir," the

chorus was noisier. Although the evening was

chill, the sidewalk tables were by no means de-

serted. The Parisian proves his patriotism

by his adherence to the out-door table, even if

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

he must turn up his collar, and shiver as he sips

his wine.

Listlessly, Steele turned into the place. It

was so crowded this evening that for a time it

looked as though he would have difficulty in

finding a seat. At last, a waiter led him to a

corner where, dropping to the seat along the

wall, he ordered his wine, and sat gloomily

looking on.

The place was unchanged. There were still

the habitues quarreling over their warring ten-

ets of the brush; men drawn to the center of

painting as moths are drawn to a candle; men

of all nationalities and sorts, alike only in the

general quality of their unkempt grotesquerie.

There was music of a sort; a plaintive chord

long-drawn from the violin occasionally made

its sweet wail heard above the babel and through

the reeking smoke of the room. Evidently, it

was some occasion beyond the ordinary, and

Steele, leaning over to the student nearest him,

inquired in French :

"Is there some celebration?"

The stranger was a short man, with hair that

fell low on his neck and greased his collar. He

3 l 9

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

had a double-pointed beard and deep-set black

eyes, which he kept fixed on his absinthe as it

dripped drop by drop from the nickeled device

attached to his frappe glass. At the question,

he looked up, astonished.

"But is it possible monsieur does not know?

We are all brothers here — brothers in the wor-

ship of the beautiful! Does not monsieur

know?"

Steele did not know, and he told the stranger

so without persiflage.

11 It is that the great Marston has returned! "

proclaimed the student, in a loud voice. " It is

that the master has come back to us — to

Paris!"

The sound of his voice had brought others

about the table. " Does monsieur know that

the Seine flows?" demanded a pearly pretty

model, raising her glass and flashing from her

dark eyes a challenging glance of ridicule.

Steele did not object to the good-humored

baiting, but he looked about him, and was

thankful that the girl on her way to Nice could

not look in on this enthusiasm over the painter's

home-coming; could not see to what Marston

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

was returning; what character of devotees were

pledging the promotion of the first disciple to

the place of the worshiped master.

Some half-drunken student, his hand upon

the shoulder of a model, lifted a tilting glass,

and shouted thickly, " Vive V art! Vive Mars-

ton!" The crowd took up the shout, and there

was much clinking of glass.

Steele, with a feeling of deep disgust, rose to

go. The other quais of the Seine were better

after all. But, as he reached for his hat, he felt

a hand on his shoulder, and, turning, recog-

nized, with a glow of welcome, the face of M.

Herve. Like himself, M. Herve seemed out

of his element, or would have seemed so had

he also not had, like Steele, that adaptability

which makes some men fit into the picture wher-

ever they may find themselves. The two shook

hands, and dropped back on the cushions of the

wall seat.

" I have heard the story," the Frenchman as-

sured Steele. " Monsieur may spare himself

the pain of repeating it. It is a miracle! "

Steele was looking into his glass.

" It is a most unhappy miracle," he replied.

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY]

"But, mon dieul" M. Herve looked across

the table, tapping the Kentuckian's sleeve with

his outstretched fingers. " It makes one think,

mon ami — it makes one think ! "

His vis-a-vis only nodded, and Herve went

on:

" It brings home to one the indestructibility

of the true genius — the unquenchable fire of it!

Destiny plays a strange game. She has here

taken a man, and juggled with his life; battered

his identity to unrecognizable fragments; set a

seal on his past. Yet, his genius she could not

efface. That burned through to the light —

sounded on insistently through the confusion of

wreck, even as that violin sounds through this

hell of noises and disorder — the great unsilenced

chord! The man thinks he copies another.

Not so — he is merely groping to find himself.

Never have I thought so deeply as since I have

heard this story."

For a time, Steele did not reply. To him,

the personal element drowned the purely aca-

demic interest of the psychological phase in this

tragedy.

Suddenly, a new element of surprise struck

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

him, and he leaned across the table, his voice

full of questioning.

" But you," he demanded, " you had studied

under Marston. You knew him, and yet, when

you saw Saxon, you had no recognition."

M. Herve nodded his head with grave

assent.

" That was my first incredulous thought when

I heard of this miracle," he admitted; "yet,

only for a moment. After all, that was in-

evitable. They were different. Now, bearded,

ill, depleted, I fancy he may once more look

the man I knew — that man whose hair was a

mane, and whose morbid timidity gave to his

eyes a haunted and uncertain fire. When I saw

Saxon, it is true I saw a man wounded and un-

conscious; his face covered with blood and the

dirt of the street, yet he was, even so, the man

of splendid physique — the new man remade

by the immensity of your Western prairies —

having acquired all that the man I had known

lacked. He was transformed. In that, his Des-

tiny was kind — she gave it not only to his body,

but to his brush. He was before a demi-god of

the palette. Now, he is the god."

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

" Do you chance to know/' asked Steele sud-

denly, " how his hand was pierced? "

"Have you not heard that story ? " the

Frenchman asked. " I am regrettably respon-

sible for that. We sought to make him build

the physical man. I persuaded him to fence,

though he did it badly and without enthusiasm.

One evening, we were toying with sharpened

foils. Partly by his carelessness and partly by

my own, the blade went through his palm. For

a long period, he could not paint."

Frederick Marston was not at once removed

from the lodgings in the Rue St. Jacques. Ab-

solute rest was what he most required. When

he awoke again, unless he awoke refreshed by

sufficient rest, Dr. Cornish held out no hope.

The strain upon enfeebled body and brain had

been great, and for days he remained delirious

or unconscious. Dr. Cornish was like adamant

in his determination that he should be left un-

disturbed for a week or more.

Meanwhile, the episode had unexpected re-

sults. The physician who had come to Paris

fleeing from a government he had failed to

overturn, who had taken an emergency case be-

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

cause there was no one else at hand, found him-

self suddenly heralded by the Paris press as

" that distinguished specialist, Dr. Cornish,

who is effecting a miraculous recovery for the

greatest of painters,"

During these days, Steele was constantly at

the lodgings, and with him, sharing his anx-

iety, was M. Herve. There were many callers

to inquire — painters and students of the neigh-

borhood, and the greater celebrities from the

more distinguished schools.

But no one was more constantly in attendance

than Alfred St. John. He divided his time be-

tween the bedside of his daughter and the lodg-

ings where Marston lay. The talk that filled

the Latin Quarter, and furiously excited the

studio on the floor below, was studiously kept

from the girl confined to her couch upstairs.

One day while St. John was in the Rue St.-

Jacques, pacing the small cour with Steele and

Herve, Jean Hautecoeur came in hurriedly.

His manner was that of anxious embarrassment,

and for a moment he paused, seeking words.

St. John's face turned white with a divina-

tion of his tidings.

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

"Does she need me?" he asked, almost

breathlessly.

Hautecoeur nodded, and St. John turned

toward the door. Steele went with him, and,

as they climbed the steep stairs, the old man

leaned heavily on his support.

The Kentuckian waited in St. John's room

most of that night. In the next apartment were

the girl, her father and the physician. A little

before dawn, the old man came out. His step

was almost tottering, and he seemed to have

aged a decade since he entered the door of the

sick-room.

11 My daughter is dead," he said very simply,

as his guest paused at the threshold. " I am

leaving Paris. My people except for me have

borne a good name. I wanted to ask you to

save that name from exposure. I wanted to

bury with my daughter everything that might

shadow her memory. For myself, nothing

matters. ,,

Steele took the hand the Englishman held

tremblingly outstretched.

" Is there anything else I can do? " he asked.

St. John shook his head.

"That will be quite all," he answered.

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THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

Such things as had to be done, however, Steele

did, and two days later, when Alfred St. John

took the train for Calais and the Channel, it

was with assurances that, while they could

not at this time cheer him, at least fortified

him against all fear of need.

It was a week later that Cornish sent for the

Kentuckian, who was waiting in the court.

" I think you can see him now," said the phy-

sician briefly, " and I think you will see a man

who has no gaps in his memory."

Steele went with some misgiving to the sick-

room. He found Marston looking at him with

eyes as clear and lucid as his own. As he came

up, the other extended a hand with a trem-

bling gesture of extreme weakness. Steele

clasped it in silence.

For a time, neither spoke.

While Steele waited, the other's face became

drawn. He was evidently struggling with him-

self in desperate distress. There was some-

thing to be said which Marston found it bit-

terly difficult to say. At last, he spoke slowly,

forcing his words and holding his features in

masklike rigidity of control.

'" I remember it all now, George." He hesi-

3 2 7

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

tated as his friend nodded; then, with a drawing

of his brows and a tremendous effort, he added,

huskily:

" And I must go to my wife."

Steele hesitated before answering.

"You can't do that, Bob," he said, gently.

" I was near her as long as could be. I think

she is entirely happy now."

The man in the bed looked up. His eyes

read the eyes of the other. If there was in his

pulse a leaping sense of release, he gave it no

expression.

M Dead? " he whispered.

Steele nodded

For a time, Marston gazed up at the ceiling

with a fixed stare. Then, his face clouded with

black self-reproach.

" If I could blot out that injury from mem-

ory! God knows I meant it as kindness."

"There is time enough to forget," said

Steele.

It was some days later that Marston went

with Steele to the Hotel Voltaire. There was

much to be explained and done. He learned

for the first time the details of the expedition

328

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

that Steele had made to South America, and

then to Europe; of the matter of the pictures

and St. John's connection with them, and of the

mystifying circumstances of the name registered

at the Elysee Palace Hotel. That incident they

never fathomed.

St. John had buried his daughter in the Cim-

etiere Montmartre. After the first mention of

the matter on his recovery to consciousness,

Marston had not again alluded to his former

wife, until he was able to go to the spot, and

place a small tribute on her grave. Standing

there, somewhat awestruck, his face became

deeply grave, and, looking up at his friend, he

spoke with deep agitation :

" There is one part of my life that was a tre-

mendous mistake. I sought to act with regard

for a misconceived duty and kindness, and I

only inflicted infinite pain. I want you to know,

and I tell you here at a spot that is to me very

solemn, that I never abandoned her. When I

left for. America, it was at her command. It

was with the avowal that I should remain sub-

ject to her recall as long as we both lived. I

should have kept my word. It's not a thing

329

, THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

that I can talk of again. You know all that

has happened since, but for once I must tell

you."

Steele felt that nothing he could say would

make the recital easier, and he merely inclined

his head.

" I shall have her removed to England, if

St. John wishes it," Marston said. " God

knows I'd like to have the account show some

offsetting of the debit."

As they left the gates for the omnibus, Mars-

ton added:

" If St., John will continue to act as my agent,

he can manage it from the other side of the

Channel. I shall not be often in Paris."

Later, he turned suddenly to the Kentuckian,

with a half-smile.

"We swindled St. John," he exclaimed.

"We bought back the pictures at Saxon prices."

His voice became unusually soft. " And Fred-

erick Marston can never paint another so good

as the portrait. We must set that right. Do

you know — " the man laughed sheepishly —

" it's rather disconcerting to find that one has

spent seven years in self-worship?"

330

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

Steele smiled with relief at the change of

subj ect.

" Is that the sensation of being deified? ' he

demanded. " Does one simply feel that Olym-

pus is drawn down to sea level?"

Shortly after, Marston sent a brief note to

Duska.

" I shall say little," he wrote. " I can't be

sure you will give me a hearing, but also I can

not go on until I have begged it. I can not

bear that any report shall reach you until I

have myself reported. My only comfort is that

I concealed nothing that I had the knowledge

to tell you. There is now no blank in my life,

and yet it is all blank, and must remain blank

unless I can come to you. I am free to speak,

and, if you give it to me, no one else can deny

me the right to speak. All that I said on that

night when a certain garden was bathed in the

moon is more true now than then, and now I

speak with full knowledge. Can you forgive

everything? "

And the girl reading the letter let it drop in

her lap, and looked out through her window

across the dazzling whiteness of the Promenade

33*

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

des Anglais to the purple Mediterranean.

Once more, her eyes lighted from deep cobalt to

violet.

" But there was nothing to forgive,'' she

softly told the sea.

332

CHAPTER XXI

When, a month later, Frederick Marston

went to the hotel on the Promenade des An-

glais at Nice, it was a much improved and re-

juvenated man as compared with the wasted

creature who had opened the closed door of the

" academy " in the Quartier Latin, and had

dropped the key on the floor. Although still a

trifle gaunt, he was much the same person who,

almost a year before, had clung to the pickets at

Churchill Downs, and halted in his view of a

two-year-old finish. Just as the raw air of the

north had given place to the wooing softness of

the Riviera, and the wet blankets of haze over

the gardens of the Tuileries to the golden sun-

light of the flower-decked south, so he had come

again out of winter into spring, and the final re-

sult of his life's equation was the man that had

been Saxon, untouched by the old Marston.

Duska's stay at Nice had been begun in apa-

thy. About her were all the influences of beauty

333

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

and roses and soft breezes, but it was not until

she had read this first letter from Marston that

these things meant anything to her. Then, sud-

denly, she had awakened to a sense of its de-

light. She knew that he would not come at

once, and she felt that this was best. She

wanted him to come back to her when he could

come as the man who had been in her life, and,

since she knew he was coming, she could wait.

Her eyes had become as brightly blue as the

Mediterranean mirroring the sky, and her

cheeks had again taken on their kinship to the

roses of the Riviera. Once more, she was one

with the nature of this favored spot, a country

that some magical realist seems to have torn

bodily from the enchanted Isles of Imagina-

tion, and transplanted in the world of Fact.

Now, she became eager to see everything, and

it so happened that, when Marston, who had not

notified her of the day of his arrival, reached

her hotel, it was to find that she and her aunt

had motored over to Monte Carlo, by the upper

Corniche Road, that show-drive of the world

which climbs along the heights with the sea be-

low and the sky, it would seem, not far above.

334

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

The man turned out again to the Promenade

des Anglais. The sun was shining on its white-

ness, and it seemed that the city was a huge

structure of solid marble, set between the sea

and the color-spotted slopes of the villa-clad

hills.

Marston was highly buoyant as he made his

way to the garage where he could secure a car

to give chase. He even paused with boyish and

delighted interest to gaze into the glittering

shop windows of the Promenade and the Ave-

nue Felix Faure } where were temptingly dis-

played profound booklets guaranteeing the pur-

chaser a sure system for conquering the chances

of roulette " on a capital of £9, playing red or

black, manque or passe, pair or impair, and

compiled by one with four years, of experi-

ence."

He had soon negotiated for a car, and had

gained the friendship of a chauffeur, who

grinned happily and with contentment when he

learned that monsieur's object was speed.

Ahead of him stretched nine miles of perfect

macadam, with enough beauty to fill the eye

and heart with joy for every mile, and at the

335

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

end of the journey — unless he could happily

overtake her sooner — was Duska.

The car sped up between the villas, up to the

white ribbon of road where the ships, lying at

anchor in the purpled water beneath, were white

toys no longer than pencils, where towns were

only patches of roof tiles, and mountainsides

mere rumpled blankets of green and color;

where the road-houses were delights of pictur-

esque rusticity and flower-covered walls.

Thanks to a punctured tire, Marston found

a large dust-coated car standing at the roadside

when he had covered only half of the journey.

It was drawn up near a road-house that sat back

of a rough stone wall, and was abandoned save

for the chauffeur, who labored over his task of

repair. But Marston stopped and ran up the

stone stairs to the small terrace, where, between

rose bushes that crowded the time-stained

facade of the modest caravansery, were set two

or three small tables under a trellis; and, at one

of the tables, he recognized Mrs. Horton.

Mrs. Horton rose with a little gasp of de-

light to welcome him, and recognized how his

eyes were ranging in search for an even more

336

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

important personage while he greeted her. Off

beyond the road, with its low guarding wall of

stone, the mountainside fell away precipitously

to the sea, stretching out below in a limitless

expanse of the bluest blue that our eyes can en-

dure. The slopes were thickly wooded.

" We blew out a tire," explained Mrs. Hor-

ton, " and Duska is exploring somewhere over

the wall there. I was content to sit here and

wait — but you are younger," she added with a

smile. " I won't keep you here."

From inside the tavern came the tinkle of

guitars, from everywhere in the clear crystalline

air hung the perfume of roses. Marston, with

quick apologies, hastened across the road,

vaulted the wall, and began his search. It was

a brief one, for, turning into a clearing, he saw

her below him on a ledge. She stood as

straight and slim and gracefully erect as the

lancelike young trees.

He made his way swiftly down the slope, and

she had not turned nor heard his approach.

He went straight to her, and took her in his

arms.

The girl wheeled with a little cry of recogni-

337

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

tion and delight; then, after a moment, she held

him off at arms' length, and looked at him.

Her eyes were deep, and needed no words.

About them was all the world and all the beauty

of it.

Finally, she laughed with the old, happy

laugh.

"Once," she said very slowly, "you quoted

poetry to me — a verse about the young queen's

crowning. Do you remember?"

He nodded.

" But that doesn't apply now," he assured

her. " You are going to crown me with an un-

deserved and unspeakable crown."

" Quote it to me now," she commanded, with

reinstated autocracy.

For a moment, the man looked into her face

as the sun struck down on its delicate color,

under the softness of hat and filmy automobile

veil; then, clasping her very close, he whispered

the lines:

" Beautiful, bold and browned,

Bright-eyed out of the battle,

The young queen rode to be crowned."

" Do you remember some other lines in the

338

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY

same verse ?" she questioned, in a voice that

made his throbbing pulses bound faster; but,

before he could answer, she went on:

t( (

Then the young queen answered swift,

" We hold it crown of our crowning, to take

our crown for a gift.'

>> > >>

They turned together, and started up the

slope.

339

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