While she was wiping her eyes, Wolf described the great anxiety which, after Charles’s death, overpowered the Quijadas in Villagarcia.
The codicil had existed, and Don Luis was familiar with its contents. But how would King Philip take it?
Dona Magdalena knew not what to do with herself in her anxiety.
The immediate future must decide Geronimo’s fate, so she went on a pilgrimage with her darling to the Madonna of Guadelupe to pray for the repose of the Emperor’s soul, and also to beseech the gracious Virgin mercifully to remember him, Geronimo.
Until that time the boy had believed Don Luis and his wife to be his parents, and had loved Dona Magdalena like the most affectionate son.
He had not even the slightest suspicion that he was a child of the Emperor, and was perfectly satisfied with the lot of being the son of a grandee and the child of so good, tender, and beautiful a mother.
This exciting expectation on the part of the Quijadas lasted nearly a whole year, for it was that length of time before Don Philip finally left the Netherlands and reached Valladolid.
He spent the anniversary of his father’s death in the monastery of Del Abrojo.
There, or previously, he had read the codicil in which his imperial father acknowledged the boy Geronimo as his son.
Barbara now desired to learn the contents of the codicil and, as Wolf had told her yesterday how the boy’s fate had changed, he interrupted his narrative and obeyed her wish.