"And because Señor Adrian wishes to keep the matter secret, he has begged me to do him the favour of taking charge of this child, which my wife and I willingly do and acknowledge to have received from the said Señor Adrian 100 crowns which he gave me for the journey, for taking the child, for a horse and clothes, and keep for one year that is to say that the year is counted from the 1st day of August of this present year 1550. For which I hold myself content and paid for this year, as it is the truth. I sign my name to it, I and my wife, but as she cannot write I begged Oger Bodarce to sign her name for her. And the said Señor Adrian shall give me 50 ducats each year for the keep of the child. Dated, Brussels, 13th of June, 1550." A long silence followed the reading of this letter; and when Ana de Medina understood that the hour had arrived for giving up the child she had looked upon as her son, she burst into tears and between her sobs said that she perfectly recognised this document to be genuine from end to end. She had done as she had sworn, and would act in the same way in the future, and give up the child to whoever was sent to fetch him; but for God's sake and Our Lady's and a multitude of saints, let him stay until seed-time, so that there should be time to make him some new clothes and render him more presentable. Bautista Vela seemed also touched, and timidly added his entreaties to those of the widow. But the Fleming, with roundabout reasonings and kindly, comforting words, showed all the same his absolute determination to leave the next day at daybreak, taking Jeromín with him. Then, in a long talk and by clever questions, he let the widow and the priest know how very displeased the powerful Luis Quijada would be when he found the state of absolute mental neglect in which the boy had lived all these years, as he was healthy in body and appeared to be so also in mind; but it was clear that he knew nothing except how to run about the country shooting at birds with his crossbow and arrows, nor had he had other lessons than those of the sacristan Francis Fernandez, and those just lately in the school in Getafe. The blame for this fell on Bautista Vela, because he had written from time to time to Luis Quijada that he was seeing that the boy's education was cared for and that it was not that of a little peasant. At this the priest and the widow were silent, knowing they were in the wrong, the more so as more than once the idea had occurred to them that Jeromín was not the son of Adrian de Bois, from whose hands they had received the child, but of Luis Quijada, Steward to Cæsar and one of his greatest lords. And their idea, which no doubt Prevost also shared, was confirmed when the supper-hour arrived and he ordered that the table should be set with the silver and service he had brought in his baggage, and, seating Jeromín in the place of honour, himself served the meal and waited.