To confound her plans and even her wishes, her health gave no sign of faltering. As much as she scrutinized herself, constantly on the lookout for any hint of an ailment, she couldn’t find the slightest symptom to worry over. She went back to her old tricks and pretended she was sick. But Julia wasn’t deceived.

“Get up, lazybones. You’re just going to lie there and waste a day as beautiful as this one? Look at the sky. Not a cloud. It’s practically a miracle in a town like this where there’s never anything but rain and more rain. Come on, get up and come with me. At least the outskirts of Ciudad Real are pretty. The Peje de Oro, the fields, the orchards. And the peaches are ripe now. Juicy and sweet. Don’t you like peaches? No, I don’t want any excuses. You’re feeling weak and exhausted? Come on, your face is turning pink—you can’t get away with telling lies.”

Julia made Idolina get dressed. Together they walked through the streets of Ciudad Real.

“Why don’t people say hello to us?” the girl observed suspiciously.

“Because they don’t know us,” her companion answered with apparent frankness. “You’ve always been shut up indoors and I’m not from here.”

Idolina wasn’t satisfied with this explanation and continued to reflect on her suspicions.

They don’t say hello because they despise us. She’s immoral and I tolerate her. What they’re saying about Julia and my stepfather is true.

In her effort to get at the truth, Idolina remembered certain details, certain odd allusions; to this evidence, she added Isabel’s jealousy. But all her suspicions collapsed when confronted with Julia, her words, her gestures. Her face was so clear, her laugh so spontaneous. No, it isn’t true, it can’t be true!

It was true. By then, relations between Julia and Leonardo had entered a more secure phase. The lovers had settled into a routine after weeks of stimulating their thirst for each other with fear— a fear Fernando’s behavior did nothing to provoke. His absences gave them a wide margin of error and his returns were always foreseen far in advance. Guilt was too weak a feeling, in both Julia and Leonardo, to sustain an atmosphere of agitation, regret and fear for very long. The passion of the affair’s early days was drifting toward a tranquil, conjugal affection.

But this was not what the rancher wanted in a lover, and certainly not what he expected from a lover like Julia. He confided his disappointment to Doña Mercedes Solórzano.