"I fancied he had returned."
"Not yet, and we all were very anxious about him, as we are about you, for he leads a most mysterious life: going off without saying where to, staying away frequently a very long time, and then returning without saying where he comes from."
"Patience, María, patience! Do you not know," he said with a shade of sorrow in his voice, "that we are toiling for you and your daughter? Some day, ere long I hope, all will be cleared up."
"Heaven grant it, don Jaime; but we are very solitary, and very anxious in this small house; the country is in a state of utter disturbance, the roads are infested by brigands; we tremble every moment lest you or don Estevan may have fallen into the hands of Cuéllar, Carvajal, or El Rayo, those bandits without faith or law, about whom frightful stories are daily told us."
"Reassure yourself, sister, Cuéllar, Carvajal, and even El Rayo," he replied with a smile, "are not so terrible as people think proper to represent to you; however, I only ask a little patience of you; before a month, I repeat, sister, all mystery shall cease, and justice be done."
"Justice!" doña María murmured, with a sigh; "Will that justice restore me my lost happiness—my son?"
"Sister," he replied with some degree of solemnity, "why doubt the power of Heaven? Hope, I tell you."
"Alas! Don Jaime, do you really understand the full import of that remark? Do you know what it is to say to a mother: hope?"
"María, do I need to repeat to you that you and your daughter are the two sole ties that attach me to life, that I have devoted my entire existence to you, sacrificing for the sake of seeing you one day happy, avenged and restored to the high rank from which you ought not to have descended, all the joys of family life and all the excitement of ambition. Do you suppose that you would see me so calm and resolute if I did not feel the certainty of being on the point of attaining that object which I have pursued for so many years with so much perseverance and such great obstinacy? Do you not know me still? Have you no further confidence in me?"
"Yes, yes, brother, I have faith in you," she exclaimed, as she sank in his arms; "and that is why I incessantly tremble, even when you tell me to hope, because I know that nothing can check you, that every obstacle raised before you will be overthrown, every peril met, and I fear lest you may succumb in this mad struggle sustained solely on my behalf."