early to dine at the "big house," Saxon protested
that he must stay and write letters. He slipped away, however, 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 recognized Steele's tenor in the
drifting strains of a sentimental song. There was no moon, and the
river was only a black mirror for the stars. The tree-grown banks were
blacker fringes of shadow, but he could make out a slender figure
wielding the stern paddle with an easy grace 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 announcement which he found
decidedly startling.

"I have been wanting to take a trip to Cuba early in the fall, and
possibly go on to Venezuela where some old friends are in the
diplomatic service," she said, "but Mr. Horton pleads business, and I
can't persuade Duska to go with me."

At 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 answer 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