rofessor Duchard nodded.

"Of course. Time travel apparently brings with it complete loss of
memory--"

"But I was insulated against amnesia!" exclaimed Mark.

"Only on the trip back, my boy. Not on your return. No doubt you
remembered the twentieth century while in the eighteenth. But your
return destroyed your memories of Bourbon France."

* * * * *

The younger man scowled.

"It doesn't make sense," he grunted. "I'm beginning to think the whole
business is so much imagination. After all, how could I transport Elaine
back from 1780 to 1942? Or myself, for that matter--"

"Perhaps I have some information which will throw light on the subject,"
the white-haired scientist interrupted. "Yesterday my old friend,
Strong, the historian, was passing through the city. He came here to see
me.

"He told me he had run across Gustav Jerbette's unpublished memoirs in
the course of his researches. And Jerbette, in describing how he came to
paint 'Elaine Duchard's Escape,' says the figure in the time mirror on
which you concentrated--the man with the horse pistol--was the first
Elaine Duchard's lover, Jacques Rombeau.

"Jerbette says Rombeau came to him with a strange assignment. First he
took him to the largest glass works in Paris and made him wait while the
craftsmen manufactured a special mirror to his order. Then Rombeau led
the way to an abandoned chateau a few miles out of Paris. Elaine Duchard
lay hidden on the top floor, desperately ill.

"Jerbette's job was to paint a picture of the girl and a strange man, as
described to him by Rombeau. Both wore clothes of a different type than
any then known, and were in strange surroundings. The job done, Rombeau
dismissed the painter. Later, Jerbette says he heard that the two lovers
were surprised and murdered by Baron Morriere and his men, although the
baron himself was killed in the fight.

"All this so intrigued Jerbette that he promptly painted his famous
'Elaine Duchard's Escape,' showing the lovers getting away from the
baron's chateau."

Mark frowned. Shook his head.

"I see how you think it ties in, Professor," he admitted, "but there are
too many loopholes."

The savant smiled.

"Yes, there are loopholes," he agreed, "but I do not think there are too
many.

"The strange portrait Jerbette painted unfortunately never turned up
again. It, of course, would be final proof. For if we found a picture of
you--Mark Carter--and Elaine