All his experience since leaving New York led up, as a matter of fact, to this very state. Señorita Marie need not be so extraordinarily fascinating, nor Jalapa so wonderfully picturesque, to set the stage for the eternal drama. He was just repeating to himself one of the girl’s naïve remarks when he became conscious of low voices above him. English was being spoken, and by a woman. He remembered what the porter had said about new arrivals at the hotel, and strained his ears to hear what was said. But the speaker was evidently seated within the room overhead, and her voice was too low to reach out and down with any distinctness. There was something in the timbre of it, or the accent, that seemed to Brainard familiar,—perhaps nothing more than its Americanism. A man’s voice, rather guttural and entirely unfamiliar, broke in on the woman’s speech. The man must be standing nearer the balcony, for Brainard could hear distinctly what he said. “I don’t see how Mossy let him slip through his fingers in Mexico City, do you?” An unintelligible answer came from within the room. “Anyway, it was clear luck our stopping off here to send that wire.” And then suddenly in perfectly distinct though low tones came the sentence: “You didn’t see the grip?” Brainard knew _that_ voice! The pert, crisp twist to the words might resemble a thousand other stenographers in style, but he knew only one that hissed her final words slightly. He held his breath and listened. The woman came out on the balcony, and Brainard noiselessly glided back into the shadow of his dark room. He had seen the profile of the figure above and knew beyond doubt that she was Krutzmacht’s former stenographer. The man said: “I wish I knew which way he meant to jump next. He’s just fool enough to go back North.” “We’ll get him, either way,” the woman replied with a snap and retreated into the room, closing the French window. XV Brainard stood without moving until his muscles ached. Then he dropped to the floor, crawled over to the bed, and felt beneath the bolster, where he had taken the precaution to conceal his bag when he had left that morning. It was still there. The room had been casually searched, or possibly his pursuers had only just arrived by a delayed train. At any rate, he had until the next morning. The woman and her companion would not be likely to make a disturbance that night, feeling that they had him and his plunder safe within grasp. They knew as well as he that all escape from Jalapa was impossible before the early morning train for the North. It must be said that from the moment Brainard first heard the stenographer’s voice, every thought of Señorita Marie and of the Haçienda di Rosas dropped from his mind. Danger was a panacea for the early symptoms of love!