It seemed that after my mother fled to England with my father, de Garcia
persecuted my grandmother and his aunt with lawsuits and by other means,
till at last she was reduced to beggary, in which condition the villain
left her to die. So poor was she indeed, that she was buried in a public
grave. After that the old woman, my informant, said she had heard that
de Garcia had committed some crime and been forced to flee the country.
What the crime was she could not remember, but it had happened about
fifteen years ago.
All this I learned when I had been about three months in Seville, and
though it was of interest it did not advance me in my search.
Some four or five nights afterwards, as I entered my employer's house
I met a young woman coming out of the doorway of the patio; she was
thickly veiled and my notice was drawn to her by her tall and beautiful
figure and because she was weeping so violently that her body shook
with her sobs. I was already well accustomed to such sights, for many
of those who sought my master's counsel had good cause to weep, and I
passed her without remark. But when I was come into the room where he
received his patients, I mentioned that I had met such a person and
asked if it was any one whom I knew.
'Ah! nephew,' said Fonseca, who always called me thus by now, and indeed
began to treat me with as much affection as though I were really of
his blood, 'a sad case, but you do not know her and she is no paying
patient.
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