"Oh! you have killed him!" she said, with a piercing shriek.
"No;" Don Ramón replied, terrified at her grief, and for the first time in his life forced to acknowledge the power of the mother who demands an account of her child.
"What have you done with him?" she screamed persistently.
"Presently, when you are more calm, you shall know all."
"I am calm," she replied, "why should you feign a pity you do not feel? My son is dead, and it is you who have killed him!"
Don Ramón alighted from his horse.
"Jesuita," he said to his wife, taking her hands and looking at her with tenderness, "I swear to you by all that is most sacred in the world, that your son exists; I have not touched a hair of his head."
The poor mother remained pensive for a few seconds.
"I believe you," she said; then after a pause she added, "What is become of him?"
"Well!" he replied, with some hesitation, "since you insist upon knowing all, learn that I have abandoned your son in the desert, but have left him the means to provide for his safety and his wants."