Ricardo Robles had resolved to travel, but Tia Teresa had quickly divined that the vendetta was again in his heart. For no other reason could he have decided on masking the paternity of his infant daughter by giving her the maternal name. And from Tia Teresa Don Manuel had no secret to conceal. “Yes.” He had sworn he would hunt Ben Thurston through Europe, and it was to protect the future life of his child from any association with future consequences of the blood feud that he had handed her over to his friends under their solemn promise that, as Merle grew up, she should never know anything more than that both her parents had died. So once again Don Manuel had gone his way and disappeared. Some years later the Darlington home had been transferred to England, where Mr. Darlington had fallen heir to some ancestral estates. Again, after a lapse of years, another change had occurred—Mr. Darlington dying, and Mrs. Darlington being left a widow in the big, now gloomy, English country-house, with Grace and Merle approaching young womanhood, and all of them, Tia Teresa included, longing again for the sunshine of California. Intermittently during those years in England, Ricardo Robles had visited his friends, but the secret about his real relationship to Merle had always been preserved. Both daughters in the home had been brought up alike to regard him simply as a dear and valued friend, whose comings brought much happiness to their lives in the shape of gifts which preserved fond memories during his prolonged spells of absence. And while the little family was still plunged in deep sorrow for the death of Mr. Darlington, Mr. Robles had reappeared as the messenger of great joy. For he brought the news that the beautiful rancho of La Siesta, lying in mid-California, among the foothills of the Tejon Valley, had been purchased for the express purpose that the widow and children should make it their future place of abode. In this way had come about the return to the land which each and all already loved best and regarded as truly “home.” “Five years ago!” murmured Tia Teresa pensively. And they had been all so happy here, the young girls growing up with every accomplishment money and the best governesses could bestow, Don Manuel not far away watching the progress and developing beauty of his daughter, always hovering near for acts of helpful kindness. Five years of placid enjoyment, of unbroken tranquility, till all of a sudden the old enemy had returned and all the rankling wounds of the old vendetta had been reopened!