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When she saw her father treating Simão's wound, Mariana fainted. João laughed loudly at his daughter's weakness. Simão was surprised by such sensitivity in a girl used to treating her father's wounds. João said that, less than a year earlier, he had suffered three wounds to his head in Lamego. Mariana had cut his hair, shaved his head and treated him. ‘It was the nobleman's blood that turned her stomach,’ he joked. When Mariana recovered, embarrassed, João appointed her as Simão's nurse. ‘I shall be very glad to, if Father wishes,’ she replied. João told her to give him broth and wash the wound with vinegar. Mariana was to talk to Simão, distract him from brooding and stop him writing too much while he was weak. Without ceremony, Simão would address Mariana as ‘girl’ whenever he needed broth, compresses or help. Mariana served him because Domingos Botelho had saved João from the gallows.
Without Domingos Botelho, Mariana might have become a beggar or suffered a worse fate. João owned property earned at the anvil and four hundred thousand réis inherited from his mother. If he were hanged or transported, the authorities would take everything to pay the costs. Simão observed that, with that home, Mariana could marry into a good farming family. She had no shortage of suitors. Even the church standard-bearer wanted her if he received João's property, valued at four thousand cruzados. But Mariana refused to marry. João did not want to lose her company either. He worked without rest for her. At fairs, when drink went to his head, Mariana tugged at his jacket and prevented trouble. If she invoked her mother's soul, the rough man allowed himself to be guided.
Mariana listened to him, hiding half her face in her white apron. Simão appreciated the simplicity and natural poetry of that rustic scene. João was called away to shoe a horse. Before leaving, João entrusted the patient to his daughter. ‘Treat him like a brother or husband,’ he added naturally. On hearing the last word, Mariana blushed deeply. She remained leaning against the doorframe of the alcove while her father went away.
Simão joked that the new nurse might miss sewing on the veranda and talking to passers-by. ‘What do I care?’ Mariana replied, adjusting her apron with childlike grace. Simão asked her to sit with her sewing and give him paper and a pencil. Smiling, Mariana reminded him that her father had also ordered her not to let him write. He promised to write only a few lines. As she handed them over, she warned that a lost letter would reveal everything. Simão asked what she knew. She said that she knew of his attachment to a noblewoman in Viseu. Now Simão was wounded and everyone was talking about the two dead men. She knew that those men had been servants of that lady's cousin. She wanted to prevent the secret from increasing the danger to João and Simão. Simão admitted that he should not have hidden the encounter. ‘God grant that it may be the last,’ Mariana said. She had prayed to the Lord of the Stations to remedy that passion, but feared the worst. Simão promised to leave for Coimbra when he recovered, leaving Teresa at home. If that happened, Mariana had promised two arráteis of wax to the Lord of the Stations, but her heart contradicted her. Moved, Simão thanked her for her friendship and asked how he had deserved it.
Wiping away her tears, Mariana recalled what Domingos had done for João. When João had been imprisoned and threatened with death, she had been thirteen. She had decided to throw herself down the well if he were hanged. If he were transported, she would go with him until death. Daily she asked God to give Domingos as many joys as there were stars in the sky. She had gone to the city to kiss Simão's mother's feet and had met his sisters. The youngest, Rita, had given her a skirt, which Mariana still kept as a relic. On trips to the fair, she took a detour to try to see Rita at the window. She had also seen Simão many times. Years earlier, she had seen Simão beat servants by the fountain, causing an enormous commotion. On hearing her tell the story, João had fallen to the ground laughing. Since then, she had only seen him again when he arrived with his uncle from Coimbra. She had feared disaster at once: she had dreamt of blood and of someone dear falling into a pit. Simão said that they were only dreams. Mariana insisted that she had never dreamt anything that did not come to pass. Before João killed the muleteer, she had dreamt that she saw him shoot another man. She had also woken weeping for her mother two months before she died. The city laughed at dreams, but only God knew their meaning.
At that moment, João entered with a letter brought by the poor woman who usually carried their messages. While Simão read the letter written in the convent, Mariana fixed her large blue eyes on his face. Every contraction of the student's brow made her heart tighten. Unable to control her anxiety, she asked whether it was bad news. João called her impertinent, but Simão defended her. ‘Let me find a friend in your daughter; only the unfortunate know how to value friends,’ the patient asked. João agreed, observing that he himself had not dared to ask what the letter said. Mariana explained that she had only spoken because Simão had seemed distressed. ‘And you were not mistaken: her father dragged Teresa to the convent,’ Simão revealed. João insulted Tadeu and instinctively made the gesture of squeezing a neck between his hands. An attentive observer would then have seen a flash of innocent joy in Mariana's eyes. It was a fleeting, involuntary reaction, not an action against Teresa.
Simão sat down to reply, and Mariana brought over a chair so that he could sit and write. While he wrote, the girl went to watch the broth simmering over the fire. ‘I must get you out of there,’ Simão began. That convent must have some exit that would allow an escape. Teresa was to find it and name the night and hour when he should wait for her. If she could not escape, the doors would be forced open before Simão's fury. If they tried to take her to another, more distant convent, she must warn him. He would go alone or with companions to intercept her on the road. He asked her to take courage so that the bold impulses of his passion would not frighten her. ‘You are mine; I do not know what use my life is unless I sacrifice it to save you.’ Simão declared that he believed in Teresa and in her faithfulness, both in life and in death. He told her not to suffer patiently but to fight heroically. Submission was a disgrace when paternal authority became an outrage. Teresa was to write to him whenever she had the opportunity. He claimed to be almost recovered. He needed only a word or a summons from her. Then he would feel that the loss of blood had not weakened the strength of his heart.
When the reply was finished, Simão asked for his wallet. He took out some silver coins and handed them to the farrier. João was to give the money and the letter to the poor messenger. Simão then stayed behind, rereading Teresa's letter and recalling the reply he had written. In the kitchen, João told his daughter that he suspected the patient had no money left. When Simão had opened his wallet, it had weighed as much as a pig's bladder full of air. João wanted to offer him money but did not know how to make him accept it. Mariana promised to think of a solution. If her father did not want to touch his four hundred thousand réis, she had her calf savings: the equivalent of ten and three-quarter gold coins. João accepted the idea and asked her to find a way for Simão to receive the money without scruples. In his rustic speech, João called the reluctance to accept help ‘remorse’.
Mariana took the broth to Simão, but he refused it, lost in thought. She asked sadly whether he did not want to have the broth. Simão said that he had no appetite and asked to be left alone for a while. He did not want her to waste her time beside a tedious patient. ‘Do you not want me here? I shall go and return when you call me,’ Mariana replied. Her eyes were shining with tears. Simão noticed the tears and thought for a moment about the girl's devotion, but said nothing to her. He continued to consider his difficult situation. The narrator observes that novelists rarely burden their heroes with the ignoble crisis of having no money. Talking about millions can still seem grand, as it does in Balzac. A hero forced to think about his tailor, his debts or a loan, however, quickly loses grandeur in the reader's eyes. The subject is prosaic, especially just after a passionate letter like Simão's. Anyone reading that letter might imagine carriages and mules ready to carry Teresa to Paris, Venice or even Japan. With irony, the narrator merely doubts that there were roads to Japan at the time. The truth, however, was what João had discovered: the magistrate's son had no money. Simão wondered how he would pay for João's hospitality, repay Mariana's care and support them both if Teresa escaped.
He had left Coimbra with only his allowance, which was not large. Almost all of it had been spent on hiring the mount and on a generous gratuity to the muleteer who had led him to the farrier. What remained had just been handed to the bearer of the letter. He thought of writing to his mother but did not know what he would tell her. How could he explain his concealed presence in João da Cruz's house? The explanation might link him to the mysterious deaths of Baltasar's two servants. Besides, he knew that his mother did not love him. Even if she sent him money in secret, it would probably be only enough for the journey to Coimbra. It was a wretched situation. Weary of thinking, Simão was granted a deep sleep by the providence of the unfortunate.
Mariana entered the room on tiptoe and, hearing Simão's heavy breathing, ventured into the alcove. She laid a fine cloth over his face to keep away the swarm of flies. She then saw the wallet on a stool, picked it up and left silently. Inside she found papers that she could not read and only two coins of six vinténs. She put the wallet back in the same place. Next, she took the guest's trousers, waistcoat and Spanish jacket from a peg. She searched the pockets and did not find a single coin. Mariana withdrew to a dark corner of the upper floor and remained there for half an hour, thinking anxiously. She then rose suddenly and spoke at length with her father. João objected at first but yielded to each of his daughter's replies. ‘I shall do as you say, Mariana,’ he finally agreed. He would not touch the chest beneath the hearth, since the entire fortune belonged to Mariana too. The girl hurried to the chest and took out a linen purse containing silver coins, together with gold chains, rings and earrings. She put the gold jewellery in a small box and gave her father the purse containing her own savings. The money belonged to Mariana: it came from her own savings. João saddled the mare and left, taking the purse with him.
Mariana returned to the patient's room and woke Simão. With an expression that was both cheerful and frightened, but visibly feigned, she began the false story intended to make him accept help without scruples. ‘Your mother knows that you are here,’ she announced. Simão replied that this was impossible and asked who had told her. Mariana merely said that his mother had sent for João. Simão was surprised that he had received no letter. Mariana added that perhaps his mother only knew he had been in that house and believed he had already left. The suggestion was possible, but Simão continued to wonder who had revealed the hiding place. If his presence were known, he might be suspected because of the deaths of the two men. Mariana replied that they might not suspect him and that, even if there were suspicions, there were no witnesses. Her father was not afraid: whatever was to happen would eventually become known. She asked him not to brood over the matter. She then offered to fetch the broth.
‘Go, if you wish, Mariana,’ Simão replied. ‘Heaven has given me, in you, the friendship of a sister.’ Mariana's joy found no words with which to answer the tenderness in his face. She returned with the ‘little broth’, although the delicate phrase hardly matched the wide, deep white bowl. Beside it was a dish containing half a plump, golden chicken. ‘So much food!’ Simão exclaimed with a smile. Blushing, Mariana asked him to eat what he could. She knew that gentlemen from the city did not use such large bowls, but she had found no smaller one. She had bought that new bowl because she thought that, the previous day, Simão had rejected the other one out of disgust. Simão assured her that this was not the reason: yesterday and now, he had no appetite. ‘But eat because I ask you to,’ Mariana insisted, apologising for her boldness. He was to imagine that it was a sister making that request. Mariana reminded him that he himself had just called her a sister. Simão considered the effort necessary both for his recovery and for the affectionate girl's happiness, and began to eat.
The possibility that he might be loved by that gentle creature then crossed Simão's mind, without a trace of vanity. It was only a conjecture, not a certainty that Mariana loved him. It seemed cruel to him to show that he had perceived such affection. His heart was not free to return it. Nor did he want to lie to her. Despite that, the young woman's attentions did not distress him; on the contrary, they flattered him. No one truly feels the weight of the love they inspire but do not share, the narrator observes. Even in the greatest distress, it is comforting to feel loved when one's own love can no longer ease one's suffering. Perhaps this is pride or an insatiable hunger of the human heart. It is by the love we receive that we often measure our worth. Mariana's possible affection neither drew Simão away from Teresa nor caused him to transfer his love to Mariana. He remained Teresa's passionate lover. If female readers condemn him for feeling flattered, the narrator concludes, the fault belongs to human nature, as weak as it is contradictory.