At that moment the man signaled the conductor to stop the car, and Mona’s heart leaped into her throat, for they were exactly opposite her own hotel.

The couple arose to leave the car, and Mona slowly followed them.

As the woman was about to step to the ground she gathered up her skirts with her right hand, to prevent them from sweeping the steps of the car, and Mona looked with eager eyes, but she could detect no mended rent.

She kept a little behind them as they crossed the sidewalk and made straight for the entrance of the hotel, when, as they were mounting the steps, the woman suddenly tripped and almost fell.

In the act, her skirts were drawn closely about her, and Mona distinctly saw a place, where the plaits or folds were laid deeply over one another, that had been mended, and not nicely, either, but hastily sewed together on the wrong side.  It would hardly have been noticed, however, unless one had been looking for it as Mona was, because it lay so deeply in among the folds.

The couple entered the hotel, and both gave Mona a quick, sharp glance as she followed; but she quietly passed them with averted eyes, and went into a reception-room on the left of the hall.

“Go and register, Jake, and I will wait here for you,” Mona heard the woman say, and the man immediately disappeared within the clerk’s office opposite, while his companion walked slowly back and forth in the hall.

Presently the man rejoined her, remarking: 

“It’s all right; they had a room next yours which they could give me.  Come,” and both passed directly up stairs.

Mona waited a few minutes, to be sure they were well out of the way, then she quietly slipped across the hall to the office.

“Will you allow me to look at the register?” she asked of the gentlemanly clerk.

“Certainly,” and with a bow and smile he placed it conveniently for her.

She thanked him, and glanced eagerly at the last name written on the page.

“J.R.  Walton, Sydney, Australia,” she read, in a coarse, irregular hand, as if the person writing it had been unaccustomed to the use of the pen.

Running her eye up the page, Mona also read, as if the name had been signed earlier in the day: 

“Mrs. J.M.  Walton, Brownsville, Mo.”

“It would appear,” mused Mona, as she left the office, “as if they are mother and son—­that he had just returned from far Australia, and she had come here to meet him.  But—­I don’t believe it!  Walton—­Walton!  Where have I heard that name before?”

She could not place it, but she was so sure that these people were in some way connected with the Palmer robbery, she was determined to make an effort to establish the fact, and immediately leaving the hotel again, she sought the nearest telegraph office, and sent the following message to Ray: 

“Send immediately piece of the ladies’ cloth torn from dress.”