here some ten days ago, with letters to one or two of the best
families, and that's all we know about them. The senora is an
entrancing mixture of Cleopatra, Sappho, Helen of Troy, and the
devil. She had the town by the ears in twenty-four hours, and you
wouldn't wonder at it if you saw her."

Already I felt that I knew, but I wanted to make sure.

"Byron has described her," I suggested, "in Childe Harold."

"Hardly," said Hovey. "No midnight beauty for hers, thank you.
Her hair is the most perfect gold. Her eyes are green; her skin
remarkably fair. What she may be is unknowable, but she certainly
is not Spanish; and, odder still, the senor himself fits the name
no better."

But I thought it needless to ask for a description of Harry; for
I had no doubt of the identity of Senor Ramal and his wife. I
pondered over the name, and suddenly realized that it was merely
"Lamar" spelled backward!

The discovery removed the last remaining shadow of doubt.

I asked in a tone of assumed indifference for their hotel,
expressing a desire to meet them--and was informed by Hovey that
they had left Denver two days previously, nor did he know where
they had gone.

Thus did I face another obstacle. But I was on the track; and
the perfume of a woman's beauty is the strongest scent in the