The question of the gratitude of Cortés for these services and for her love is one that is to be settled by each reader of history according to his own ideas of the form which true appreciation should take. The facts are simple enough. In 1525 she was with the Conqueror at Coatzacualco, the province which could claim the honor of being her birthplace. Here, by accident, she came into contact with her own mother, who had sold her into slavery and who was now naturally terrified at meeting her injured daughter in a situation of power; but Marina, with her natural generosity, embraced her parent, assured her of her forgiveness, and even made her many presents, apparently in the wish to regain that affection which had once been hers in her babyhood. This was the last time that Marina appears by the side of Cortés; on the expedition to Honduras, made shortly afterward, he gave her away to Don Juan Xamarillo, a knight of Castile, who wedded her according to the rites of the Catholic Church. Here then is the question which each must decide for himself: Was Cortés just and generous in thus making disposition for the honorable and safe future of the woman who loved him, or was he merely ridding himself of one who had grown to be an encumbrance? It is impossible to answer; it is not even known whether the marriage was arranged with the sanction of Marina or whether it was a piece of tyranny on the part of the Conqueror, of venality on the part of Don Juan, of heartbroken docility on the part of Marina. Nor is there any record of the further life of the latter by which to decide the probabilities of her marriage being more than a mere contract; from the time of the completion of the ceremony the gentle Marina fades from the page of history. It is certain indeed that she was given estates in Coatzacualco,--possibly the bribe which induced Don Juan to wed the mistress of his captain,--but it is not even known that she lived to take possession of those estates. Except for the unmerited persecution and shameful torture undergone by her son, Don Martin Cortés, we are never again reminded in history that Marina had lived to be the right hand of one of the greatest conquerors of all time, to prove the most valuable ally found by the fierce enemies of her native land, and yet to be held in lasting honor alike by conquerors and conquered.