Whilst the two were in this situation, Dona Estafania’s husband entered the room, leading little Luis by the hand.  On seeing his wife all in tears, and Leocadia fainting, he eagerly inquired the cause of so startling a spectacle.  The boy having embraced his mother, calling her his cousin, and his grandmother, calling her his benefactress, repeated his grandfather’s question.  “I have great things to tell you, senor,” said Dona Estafania to her husband, “the cream and substance of which is this:  the fainting girl before you is your daughter, and that boy is your grandson.  This truth which I have learned from her lips is confirmed by his face, in which we have both beheld that of our son.”

“Unless you speak more fully, senora, I cannot understand you,” replied her husband.

Just then Leocadia came to herself, and embracing the cross seemed changed into a sea of tears, and the gentleman remained in utter bewilderment, until his wife had repeated to him, from beginning to end, Leocadia’s whole story; and he believed it, through the blessed dispensation of Heaven, which had confirmed it by so many convincing testimonies.  He embraced and comforted Leocadia, kissed his grandson, and that same day he despatched a courier to Naples, with a letter to his son, requiring him to come home instantly, for his mother and he had concluded a suitable match for him with a very beautiful lady.  They would not allow Leocadia and her son to return any more to the house of her parents, who, overjoyed at her good fortune, gave thanks for it to Heaven with all their hearts.

The courier arrived at Naples; and Rodolfo, eager to become possessed of so beautiful a wife as his father had described, took advantage of the opportunity offered by four galleys which were ready to sail for Spain; and two days after the receipt of the letter he embarked with his two comrades, who were still with him.  After a prosperous run of twelve days, he reached Barcelona, whence he posted in seven to Toledo, and entered his father’s house, dressed in the very extreme of fashionable bravery.  His parents were beyond measure rejoiced at his safe arrival, after so long an absence; and Leocadia was filled with indescribable emotions, as she beheld him, herself unseen, from a secret place in which she had been stationed by Dona Estafania’s contrivance.  Rodolfo’s two comrades proposed to take leave of him at once, and retire to their own homes; but Estafania would not suffer them to depart, for their presence was needful for the execution of a scheme she had in her head.

It was nearly night when Rodolfo arrived; and whilst preparations were making for supper, Estafania took her son’s companions aside, believing that they were two of the three whom Leocadia mentioned as having been with Rodolfo on the night of her abduction.  She earnestly entreated them to tell her, if they remembered that her son had carried off a young woman, on such a night, so many years ago; for the honour