Had any event caused surprise and murmuring in the city during these days of his stay in Cabril?... The steward wiped his lips and affirmed that nothing had occurred in Segovia that was being talked about, unless it was that the daughter of Don Gutierres, the young and rich heiress, had taken the veil in the Convent of the Barefooted Carmelites. Don Alonso insisted, fixing his eyes greedily on the steward. And had not there been a great quarrel?... had not a well-known young knight been found wounded on the Cabril road?... The steward shrugged his shoulders; he had heard nothing in the city of quarrels or wounded knights. With a rough gesture Don Alonso dismissed the steward, and, after a spare supper, he returned at once to the gallery to watch the windows of Don Ruy. They were now closed; in the end one at the corner shone a trembling light. All the night Don Alonso watched, tirelessly revolving in his mind the same wonderment. How could that man have escaped with his heart transfixed by a dagger? How could he?... When morning dawned, he got a cloak and large hat and descended, all muffled up and concealed, into the square, and remained patrolling in front of Don Ruy’s house. The bells rang for matins. Tradesmen in ill-buttoned jerkins came out to raise the shutter-doors of their shops and hang out their signs. Market-gardeners, urging on their donkeys laden with baskets, were already shouting their cries of fresh vegetables; bare-footed friars, with their wallets on their shoulders, begged an alms and gave their blessing to the girls; and cloaked _beatas_, with great black rosaries, threaded their way greedily towards the church. Then the city crier stopped at a corner of the square, sounded a horn, and in a powerful voice began to read a proclamation. The Lord of Lara had stopped, gaping, near the fountain, as though enraptured by the song of the three spouts of water. Suddenly it occurred to him that that proclamation, read by the city crier, perhaps referred to Don Ruy--to his disappearance.... He ran to the corner of the square, but the man had already rolled up his paper and majestically departed, beating on the pavement with his white staff. When he turned round to spy the house again, lo! his astonished eyes encountered Don Ruy--Don Ruy whom he had killed--coming walking to the Church of Our Lady, gaily and airily, lifting a smiling face in the fresh morning air, wearing a bright jerkin and bright plumes, one of his hands resting on his girdle, the other absently twirling a stick with tassels of golden braid! Then, with halting, aged steps, Don Alonso went back to the house. At the top of the stone staircase he met his old chaplain, who had come to greet him, and who penetrated with him into the antechamber, and, after respectfully asking for news of Donna Leonor, at once told him of an extraordinary event which was causing serious murmuring and surprise in the city. Late the evening before, when the Corregedor went