"
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
world as well as the sweetest. I thanked my cousin for a pleasant
evening--though he did not know the extent of my debt to him--and
declined his urgent invitation to have my luggage brought to his
home.
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