“His engagement was announced three days later. Aunt Hilda had known about it all the time, but he had not wanted it talked about until his fiancée returned from India, where her father was a Judge.”

Skye’s voice died away.

She was looking out over the plain, but she did not see the men and the horses, the flower-strewn grass and the blue river twisting through it.

Instead she saw a pot of marmalade.

She was staring at the label – Robinson’s Golden Shred – reading it over and over again while Aunt Hilda’s voice droned on beside her.

“We must think up a nice wedding present to give David,” she was saying. “He might even suggest that you should be a bridesmaid – after all, there are not many Standishes left.”

Robinson’s Golden Shred.

Skye could hear her heart crying out, “no! no! no!” while she sat saying nothing.

“Poor little Skye, so that is what happened.”

She had almost forgotten El Diablo was beside her and now she started and turned towards him, her voice hard and brittle as she said,

“Stupid, isn’t it? But when one is young one minds things so terribly.”

“Yes, when one is young,” El Diablo agreed.

They looked at each other for a moment before Skye turned her face away.

“Now you know why I distrust all men,” she said with a false brightness, “and, of course, you have hardly endeared me to your sex.”

“What David began I have undoubtedly finished,” El Diablo remarked, and his voice was hard, “but there are other men in the world.”

“I am not encouraged to believe them to be any different,” Skye retorted.

“Who knows? Perhaps one day somebody inestimable will come along,” El Diablo said. “He will be what your Aunt Hilda would undoubtedly call ‘Mr. Right’.”

Skye gave a sudden gurgle of laughter.

“How did you guess that that was what she called him?” she said and even as she said the words, she remembered that there was no reason why he should not guess what Aunt Hilda would say – or any other Englishwoman of her generation.

He doubtless had innumerable relations exactly like Aunt Hilda and perhaps the girl in the photograph had been ‘Miss Right’ for him, only something had gone wrong.

She wanted to ask him about himself. After all, she had told him the secret she had never before revealed to anyone, but even as she summoned up courage to begin their moment of quiet intimacy was over.

Another rider arrived from Jācara and El Diablo rose and went away to consult with the man and he remained away until the time came for them to move on.

Despite a strong breeze it was very hot as they rode towards the town.