It was whispered that Leonardo was courting her. She denied it with a movement of the head but her denial looked more like that of a hopeful bride than of an inconsolable widow. And why should she have to be an inconsolable widow? She was still young, she was healthy. Isidoro was rotting away underground; he was erased from her memory as quickly as a dream.

Isidoro never enjoyed the resounding, almost insulting existence of other beings (Leonardo, for example). Neurasthenic, taciturn, tormented, anxious. Perhaps he didn’t die in an accident; perhaps he committed suicide in one of the fits of melancholy that tortured him and were growing longer and more intense.

Isabel was the last person who wanted to voice this suspicion. But was it not her moral duty to do so if Leonardo’s good name was falling victim to evil tongues? In consultation with her confessor, she was categorically forbidden to allude to it. The reputation of the dead cannot be touched, said His Excellency. The living can defend themselves. Don’t worry yourself about Leonardo Cifuentes. He can take care of himself and then some.

Everyone persisted in accusing him. And deep down, very secretly, Isabel, too, was uncertain of his innocence. But she didn’t want to feel that she was linked to the crime and even less to admit that she had been its motive. Her spirit did not have the strength to carry the weight of guilt or the gravity of remorse. She searched the past to find another reason underlying Leonardo’s act. She came up with envy. Isn’t it natural that two boys who have grown up together would turn against each other if one of them enjoys all the privileges while the other always takes second place? Even Cain, in the Bible, did the same thing to his brother Abel because of the inequality of the treatment they were given.

The whole town admired the magnanimity of Isidoro’s parents when they took Leonardo into their home as a small boy. But afterward, no one witnessed the small pettinesses, the constant comparisons between the legitimate and the adopted son, in which the latter always had to come out behind. A child whose sharp intelligence and vehement feelings were noticed by everyone cannot be treated that way without consequences. Who knows what blood runs through an orphan’s veins? It might be more noble and more proud than the blood of his benefactors. And what had they given him, apart from their name? The crude education of a cowherd. While Isidoro was given a full, liberal education. He couldn’t complete it; his intelligence was not very solid. He came back from Paris without any diploma to show for his years there.

He did bring back a tuxedo that had diamond buttons and a shirtfront gathered in little tucks. He was wearing it the night he declared himself to Isabel. She accepted him, looking at those tiny stones.