dship that needs no further testing. Steele was not the type that
goes into an embittered exile. His face had become 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.

"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 leaving the past behind. If you
do the first, whether or not you are the man they want, the
circumstantial case is strong. You know too little of your past to
defend yourself, and you are placing yourself in the enemy's hands.
The result will probably be against you with equal certainty whether
innocent or guilty."

"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 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 circumstances to be sold.

Each day, he insisted on the necessity of his investigation, and
argued it with all the forcefulness he could command, but Duska
steadfastly 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 disproving of this suspicion would leave you where
you