"It is only from the padre who borrowed the horse, and he thanks her," said Ana, coolly. "Ride straight home, and talk to no one, or you will get a reata instead of frijolles."
The Indian boy nodded silently. He knew the Doña Ana always kept her promises of that sort.
A little later, Teresa looked out at the sound of horse-hoofs thundering by, and saw Ana on the road to the sea.
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 cañon of the cactus and up to the heights above. More than once Doña 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."