“You mean to tell me that Thurston wronged Rosetta—betrayed her?”
Tia Teresa nodded assent—she was too deeply agitated to speak another word.
“And this day—the eleventh of October—the day when you decorate her grave?” enquired Merle, in a tone and with a look that compelled an answer.
“Is the day she was found dead on the rocks below Comanche Point,” replied Tia Teresa.
At the same moment the duenna started to her feet. A wonderful and terrible transition came over her usually placid countenance. Her eyes fairly blazed with mingled fury and hatred. Her fists were clenched by her side. Her whole frame trembled.
“Murdered by Ben Thurston!” she added, the words hissing like hot lava from her lips.
“Murdered?” cried Merle, incredulously. She too, had risen.
“Yes, pushed over the cliff by his coward hands. His torn coat, one of the buttons between her dead fingers, proclaimed his guilt before God and man. But there was no justice in the land in those days—the days when the gringos broke up our Spanish homes. Now you know everything—that was the real reason of the Vendetta of the Hills.”
Tia Teresa was calm again—it was Merle who was deeply agitated, too deeply agitated for a moment to speak.
The duenna went on triumphantly. “But the vendetta once sworn will always be fulfilled. Tonight at Comanche Point—”