Van Diemen returned to the United States, but his wife soon became homesick for her native land, and, like a good husband as he was, he went once more to Mexico.

This time he settled in Santa Fe, where he accumulated a handsome fortune, lived in the best house in the city, and owned haciendas.
Clara's mother dying when the girl was fourteen years old, Van Diemen felt free to give her, his only child, an American education, and sent her to New York, where she went through four years of schooling.

During this period came the war between the United States and Mexico.

Foreign residents were ill-treated; Van Diemen was sometimes a prisoner, sometimes a fugitive; in one way or another his fortune went to pieces.

Four months previous to the opening of this story he died in a state little better than insolvency.