Then followed to Clarence three uneventful years.

During that interval he learnt that Jackson Brant, or Don Juan Robinson--for the tie of kinship was the least factor in their relations to each other, and after the departure of Flynn was tacitly ignored by both--was more Spanish than American.

An early residence in Lower California, marriage with a rich Mexican widow, whose dying childless left him sole heir, and some strange restraining idiosyncrasy of temperament had quite denationalized him.

A bookish recluse, somewhat superfastidious towards his own countrymen, the more Clarence knew him the more singular appeared his acquaintance with Flynn; but as he did not exhibit more communicativeness on this point than upon their own kinship, Clarence finally concluded that it was due to the dominant character of his former friend, and thought no more about it.

He entered upon the new life at El Refugio with no disturbing past.