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"Señora, do you know this man?" de Soto asked Araceli while showing her the face of her daughter's kidnapper.

She blinked, as though to make sure what she was seeing was real, and again she nodded, unable to utter a word. The look on her face was one of shock and disbelief, with a hint of a certain sadness and disappointment.

"Yes," she finally managed to say in a hoarse voice.

All eyes looked expectantly at her.

"Señora...?" de Soto prompted her.

But she didn't seem to hear him. She released her daughter and instinctively pushed her in her father's direction. Leonor hugged him tight and hid her face in his middle, still scared by the bandit who abducted her.

Then Araceli walked to the man, her eyes wide and her mouth agape. Don Alejandro had a reflex gesture as to stop her from going closer to the bandit; but seeing that de Soto was still firmly holding the man who thus couldn't harm her, Diego gently held him back.

Araceli stood in front of her daughter's kidnapper and stared at him; then in a choked and still incredulous voice, she simply asked him:

"How... how could you...?"

The man lowered his eyes to the ground.

"LOOK AT ME!" she burst out.

He hesitantly raised a very apprehensive look at her.

An air of immense sadness invaded the features of her face.

"Pablo, how could you?" she sighed, clearly at a loss.

De Soto decided to remind her of his presence and of his earlier question.

"Señora, who is this man?"

She tore her gaze away from the prisoner and looked at the alcalde.

"His name is Pablo Ortega. He's a farmer from San Diego. His farm is on a land owned by my family."

"So he is a tenant-farmer of your family?"

"Yes," she confirmed in a somewhat gloomy voice.

Then she turned to Ortega and barked at him:

"How dared you...? How could you take my daughter?"

"I wouldn't have hurt her, I swear!" he assured.

"Oh really? That's not what the note promised!"

Again, he cast his eyes down.

"LOOK AT ME!" she repeated. "Please tell me you're not the one who wrote it..."

But Ortega didn't answer; instead, he looked further down, contemplating the tip of his shoes.

"Oh my God..." Araceli murmured, appalled.

"It... it... it was just words, I swear!" he cried out. "I would have never... We would have never–"

"Oh Dios!" she cut him short. "And to think I'm the one who encouraged you to learn how to read and write!"

"I'm... I'm sorry, Señora," he mumbled.

"You're sorry? YOU'RE SORRY?" she bust out. "And would you dare go to my daughter here and face her, look her straight in the eye and tell her that you're sorry?"

He still didn't raise his head; quite the contrary in fact: he seemed very eager to retreat inside himself and not face anyone. And certainly not the child he had so scared, nor her incensed mother.

"You're sorry because you've been caught," Araceli went on, "that's all. I cannot believe it," she then said, sighing. "After everything I've done for you! Why did you– why did you do that to me?"

"It wasn't against you Señora, I swear!" Ortega said, finally raising his head and looking at her pleadingly.

"Then why?"

He shrugged.

"Well, money of course!" he answered matter-of-factly. "What else is there?"

She was flabbergasted by that answer and simply looked at him, gaping.

"What do you think?" he told her. "What can someone like you, who's born into money just like Don Alejandro, understand to the kind of life we're living? You can buy whatever you want, whenever you want! You can treat yourself with whatever you like! And you dare lecture and pontificate about how to spend money to people who have only little of it?"

De Soto grabbed him by the back of his jacket and brought him down his mount.

"Now," the alcade said, let's go straight to the jail; and you'd better tell us you accomplices' names if you don't want to bear all the brunt for your disgusting actions on a helpless child!"

Araceli tightened her hands into fists and turned her back to him, heading to her daughter.

All along this confrontation, Alejandro had been dying to jump at the man's throat and make him regret to have even laid a finger on his little girl; but with his son keeping a comforting but firm hand on his shoulder and his daughter clutching to his waist, he had both his children to hold him in check and keep him from giving in to his usual impulsiveness.

Araceli bent to Leonor and took her from Don Alejandro, picking her up and holding her into her arms. She forced a strained smile on her face to reassure her child.

"Come on, mi Angel," she told Leonor, "you must be exhausted."

She kissed her forehead and then looked at her daughter's father:

"Please Alejandro, let's go back to your hacienda, now," she asked, with her eyes half closed out of weariness and dismay. "Please..." she repeated, looking more dejected than ever.

Momentarily giving up on his ideas of revenge, Don Alejandro granted Araceli her wish and they finally headed home. After all, he too was nervously exhausted after this trying day, even if he wouldn't have admitted it for all the gold of California.

And anyway, if there was gold in California, people would know it by now!

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"She's so peaceful now..."

Araceli kept stroking lightly Leonor's hair, unable to tear herself from her daughter. On the other side of the bed, Alejandro was watching his sleeping child.

At first, the girl had wanted to spend the night in any one of her parents' bed, either with her mother or her father, and considering the circumstances they almost agreed to it. But they knew that the sooner she resumed a normal life, the better; and she had to face the coming night, even with the risk of nightmares. If they started to sleep beside her, they would only postpone her dealing with it, making it harder the later it would occur.

Yet it had been hard to refuse their daughter her wish, but they stood fast and firm even though they too longed to stay the night at her side. They agreed however to stay with her until she fell asleep.

Diego too had come to bid her good night, and he even stayed a bit when his father left them a few minutes to have a well-deserved bath. He had sat on a chair beside his sister's bed and dared to hesitantly pat her hand, not saying anything. She had stared at him a bit puzzled but didn't withdraw her arm from his gentle touch.

When a cleanly clad and shaved Alejandro had come back a quarter of an hour later, he had found his two children silently waiting for him with their fingers slightly entwined.

The moment he came in she had turned to him and her eyes had lit up. Diego had got up and let his place to his father, making a show of yawning exaggeratedly.

"I'm completely exhausted after this eventful day," he had said. "I'm going to bed before I fall asleep on my feet. Good night Father, Señora." He had then looked at the bed. "Good night Leonor."

This had happened a good twenty minutes earlier. Now Leonor had finally fallen asleep and there was no sign that she was having a troubled sleep. Alejandro too began stroking her shortened hair and from time to time, his fingers fortuitously brushed Araceli's lightly over their child's head.

"You're awfully silent," he finally remarked, whispering.

"You didn't say anything either since your son left the room," she answered in a murmur.

He nodded slowly and silently. She stopped caressing her daughter's hair and leaned back in her chair.

"I was... thinking..." she said in a low voice. "About what Ortega said..."

She paused and looked at him, then at Leonor.

"Perhaps she is spoiled too much..." she murmured pensively. "Without us even realising it."

Alejandro was stunned.

"Spoiled?" he repeated her words. "Leonor?"

"Yes. After all, Pablo was right in a way, about me. And you. We both had the luck to be born from parents who had money, we haven't known the kind of childhood most people have. Perhaps it made us... unable to understand some things. Even with the best will in the world, maybe we can't fathom certain things, or feelings, or situations... Don't you think?"

He looked at her, surprised and thinking hard.

"Still," he finally said, not directly answering her question, "I don't think you're spoiling her. I don't think we're spoiling her. You're giving her good principles, I know that. You don't indulge her every whim or fancy, you don't overlook the stupid things she can do, we don't overindulge her with tons of costly presents... No, I don't think we're spoiling her..."

"Of course, but there's not only that. Perhaps I should dress her with simpler clothes, instead of visibly expensive fancy dresses. Perhaps I should avoid what emphasises the difference between her and my employees' children."

"We always want the best for our children... that's only natural and very human."

"Yes, and we also want to prevent them from experiencing the same hardships as we did. But in doing so, perhaps we bring other kinds of hardships for them..."

"What do you mean?" Alejandro asked her.

"Well... if my parents hadn't bowed to most of my whims when I was a child, if they had told me 'no' more often when I was her age, I probably wouldn't have married Pascual ten years later... May his soul rest in peace."

"And perhaps," Alejandro added, "if I hadn't made things so... so... easy... for Diego in his youth, if he had had to try harder for what he got, if he had had to fight for it... if he hadn't been so carefree... well, perhaps he'd be... different, now. Less... less indolent. Not so spineless. He'd probably be stronger if he had known some more difficulties in his youth..."

"Personally," Araceli contradicted him, "I'd think that losing his mother when he was in fact still a child and having to finish growing up without her was enough of a hardship, don't you think? The death of one of the two persons he loved most in the world certainly toughened him and was probably hard enough on him, I'd say."

"Of course, you're right... Yes, of course..." Alejandro mumbled, humbled by her intercession on behalf of his own son. "Gracias for reminding me my duties as a father, even to the child who's not yours."

"I don't know your son, Alejandro," she replied, "and I don't know what to think of him. But at first sight I can already say that he's not too fond of me; neither is he of Leonor. He didn't do anything to help us find her, even after the note; he just went to bed because he had a headache..." she sighed. "But on the other hand, the taverness spoke highly of him this afternoon. So I think I'll reserve judgement about Don Diego."

He sent her a poor sheepish smile. Then he remembered her previous sentence:

"You mean Victoria...? Did she really...?"

He sighed, before he went on:

"Most of the time I think he's just a mere idle young man without a care in the world. And once in a while, he does something that makes me think that all is not lost with him... that there is still hope... But when he acts it's only from behind his desk, sitting on a chair... through this newspaper or the letters he sends to the governor. He never really acts. And never in a million year would he do anything that might physically put him on the line, even remotely so. I think he's afraid something might mar his pretty face. My son is just a... a..."

"Alejandro," she interrupted him, "I think you'd better not finish this sentence. I know you, you'd regret it later. And in fact there is nothing wrong in fighting with the only weapons you're sure to master; quite the contrary, it's rather wise."

At these last words, Alejandro pulled a face. She smiled:

"I was sure you'd react like that," she said, stifling a giggle.

Then she became serious again: "Anyway, he certainly doesn't like me much."

She paused.

"I'm sure you're mistak–" Alejandro started to say.

"I can understand," she cut him. "I can only imagine I'm quite a shock to him. I can understand I'm probably not his favourite person... I just hope he won't be a pest about that."

"Well," Alejandro replied, "if that's any comfort to you, he definitely doesn't think too high of me either right now..." He sighed. "I've disappointed him."

She stared into space.

"It's hard enough to be disappointed by someone you trust," she finally said after a long and awkward silence. "Then I can only imagine what it must be when it's by someone you trust and love..." she added in a whisper.

In a rare flash of perspicacity, Alejandro noticed her sad and subdued air, and he asked her:

"It's about this tenant-farmer of yours, isn't it?"

She looked distressed at the fresh memory of it, but didn't say a word.

"You must feel so betrayed..." he went on. "I'm terribly sorry for you. And now I even resent him for hurting your feelings on top of what he did to Leonor and of the fright it gave me..."

She very slowly nodded.

He got up and walked around his daughter's bed to Araceli's chair.

"Your bath must be ready by now," he told her. "Go wash away your worries of the day, you'll feel better after that. And try to sleep afterwards, you had a very trying day. We all did."

She nodded again and got up from her seat. She leaned over her daughter and landed a very light kiss on Leonor's forehead, soon imitated in that by Don Alejandro. They both felt some trouble leaving their child after such a day, but they finally tore themselves away from her bed and exited the room, closing quietly the door behind them.

"Err... well, good night Araceli," Alejandro simply told her.

Then he took a step closer and awkwardly kissed her cheek. After that he turned on his heels, left the guestroom's corridor and retreated to his own bedroom.

What a strange day it had been!