Everybody, even Enrique, was occupied.  John caught the bridle of Delfina’s horse, and forced it back into the forest.  And then his words tumbled one over the other.

“I must, I must!” he said wildly, keeping down his voice with difficulty.  “I’ve scarcely had a chance to make you love me, but I can’t wait to tell you—­I love you.  I love you!  I want to marry you!  Oh—­I am choking!” He wrenched at his collar, and in truth he felt as if the very mountain were trembling.

Delfina had thrown back her head.  “Ay!” she remarked.  Then she laughed.

She had no desire to be cruel, but her manifest amusement brought the blood down from John’s head, and he shook from head to foot.  His white face showed plainly in this fringe of the forest, and she ceased laughing and spoke kindly.

“Poor boy, I am sorry si I hurt you, but I no can marry you.  Never I can love the Americano; no is like our men, so handsome, so graceful, so splendid.  I like you, for are very nice boy, but I go to marry with Enrique.  So no theenk more about it.”  Then as he continued to stare, the youthful agony in his face touched her, and she leaned forward and said softly, “Can kiss me once si you like.  You are boy to me, no more, so I no mind.”  And he kissed her with a violence of despair and passion which caused her maiden mind to wonder, and which she never experienced again.

He went no more to the Casa Ortega, and hid among his olive-trees when the company clattered by the Mission.  At the end of another week she returned to her home, and three months later she returned as the bride of Enrique Ortega.

Talbot smiled slightly as he recalled the sufferings of the boy long dead.  There had been months when he had felt half mad; then had succeeded several years of melancholy and a distaste for everything in life but work.  He could not bring himself to sell the ranch and flee from the scene of his disappointment, for he was young enough to take a morbid pleasure in the very theatre of his failure.

He did not see Delfina again for three years.  By that time she had three children and had begun to grow stout.  But she was still very beautiful, and John kept out of her way for several years more.

But the years rolled round very swiftly.  Dona Martina died.  So did six of the ten children Delfina bore.  Then Enrique died, leaving his diminished estates, his wife, and his four little girls to the care of John Talbot.

This was after fourteen years of matrimony and six years of intimacy between Talbot and the family of Los Olivos.  One day Enrique, in desperation at the encroachments of certain squatters, had bethought himself of the American, now the most influential man in the county, and gone to him for advice.  Talbot had found him a good lawyer, lent him the necessary money, and the squatters were dispossessed.  Enrique’s gratitude for Talbot knew no bounds; he pressed the hospitality of Los Olivos upon him, and in time the two became fast friends.