_Santa Mae_! That would not suit me if I were her age!" This home-coming of Carmela was quite an important event in its way.
At first sight it bore the semblance of a mere disillusionment such as any girl might experience under like circumstances.

She had been taken from Las Flores to occupy a palace at Rio de Janeiro, and was driven from the palace to the hotel life of the Continent.

During two years she had not seen either father or lover; and lovers of the San Benavides ilk are apt to console themselves during these prolonged intervals.

Yet Carmela's shattered romance was the pivot on which rested the future of Brazil.
Had she gone straight to Iris on leaving her father, and made known the astounding tidings that Verity and Bulmer were riding up the Moxoto Valley barely three miles away, Iris would surely have devised some means of acquainting Philip Hozier with the fact.

In that event, assuming that he awaited their arrival, the first march of an extended reconnaissance which he thought desirable would necessarily be postponed.