She let her horse have his head until she came to the Rancho de la Playa, when she halted to scan the meadow and sand of the shore, and then bent her attention to the ground, and paced slowly along until she found the tracks of Raquel's horse turning to the right. There was only one road to be followed to the right; she had gone through the little canyon of the cactus and up to the heights above. More than once Dona Ana halted to examine the ground, to be sure that no later tracks had been made on a return trip. Then, away across the mesa she saw Raquel's horse browsing among the sage-brush on the cliff above the sea. Raquel was nowhere in sight; but, knowing she was near, Ana rode quietly along the bluff, until right at the edge of the cliff she saw her stretched at full length in the odorous grasses, her chin propped on her hands, staring down the steeps where yellow poppies nodded to the surf below. A cluster of the blossoms was beside her, and her skirt was torn. She had evidently been down there after them, and was resting after her climb. "What is it, Anita?" she asked after a brief upward glance. "Is there a spirit of unrest with you also? Some say there is sleep and forgetfulness in these little cups of gold. I have gathered some and lain here a long time, but it is not true, Anita. There is no forgetting." Ana slipped from the saddle and came closer. Never before had so much of confession been heard from Raquel Arteaga. "What, then, do you try to forget, my darling?" she asked, caressingly. "Your love and happiness?" "Love is not happiness," said Raquel, and laid her cheek against the sheaf of poppies. "Why do people say so? Do they wish to lie, or do they not know? The heart does not laugh with love; it aches. The light and the glory of it comes, and after that comes the earthquake; and the life is shaken out of us, and all we can do is to make ourselves a sacrifice." "Holy saints! I never knew love was all that!" acknowledged Ana. "It means also to dance, to listen to your lover's songs in the night under your window, and to go to sleep satisfied that he is not with some other girl. It means stolen looks like kisses. I never am sure but that they are sweeter than the kisses themselves, though they do not make one mad." [Illustration: "THERE IS NO FORGETTING"] Raquel looked at her, and smiled strangely, and rose to her feet. "Ai! you are right, Anita; it is without doubt more wise to love like that. All the girls in the willows think so." As she saw Ana's face flush, she turned in quick contrition. "Ah, forgive me! You do not love as they do, I am sure--those fat brown animals; but, Anita darling, I am a tired soul, and rest is somewhere far beyond the ranges, and--ah, well,--forgive me!" Ana smiled and shrugged her shoulders.