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On 4 August 1805, João da Cruz sat at the table, sombre. He had no appetite for lunch. His sister-in-law Josefa asked why he was not eating. João touched his throat: he could not swallow a mouthful. ‘I miss the girl,’ he admitted. He would give everything to have Mariana beside him again. Her eyes seemed to pierce a man's hidden sorrows. He cursed the misfortunes that had parted them, perhaps briefly, perhaps for ever. He then acknowledged the reason. Without shooting the muleteer, he would not have owed the magistrate a debt. Without that obligation, he would not have cared whether the magistrate's son lived or died. Josefa suggested bringing Mariana home for a while. Afterwards, he could send her back to Senhor Simão. ‘That is not worthy of a grown man, Josefa.’ Without Mariana, Simão would die of despair behind those bars. That day's impulse, however, awakened a decision in him. ‘To the devil with the money: tomorrow I am going to Porto.’ Josefa replied that this was what he ought to do. João declared that whoever remained would earn what was left. ‘Better to lose the rings and keep the fingers,’ he added. Until then, the strength of his arm had overcome everything. If Mariana was left with less, she must manage; she had chosen that path. As João planned the journey to Porto, he brightened and felt his throat ease.
After lunch, João became brooding again beside the settle. Josefa asked whether he was still fretting. ‘It feels like the devil's work, woman!’ he exclaimed. He wondered whether Mariana might be ill or dead. Josefa invoked the Holy Trinity and rebuked him. João felt as black inside as that frying pan. Josefa blamed wind and told him to get some air and work. The farrier went to the covered workspace containing his tools and anvil. He worked on the horseshoe nails without finding peace in the task. Several acquaintances were surprised to find him taciturn and humourless. He sent away anyone who asked what was wrong. Another man wished him God's protection; João returned the greeting and asked whether there was any news. The man knew nothing; João dismissed him in a foul temper. João kept dropping his hammer, sitting on the block and scratching his head. Whenever he resumed, he spoiled the nails or hammered his own fingers. He called it the devil's work and fetched a pitcher. He drank as a fashionable sufferer from ethereal passions might stupefy himself with absinthe. ‘I shall drown you, evil thing squeezing my soul!’ he cried, waving his arms and stamping his foot.
João returned to the covered workspace as a traveller rode past on a powerful mule. Despite the heat, the rider was wrapped in a broad Spanish-style cloak. He wore rawhide boots with yellow spurs and kept his hat pulled down over his eyes. The traveller greeted João, who replied while examining the mule's hooves for possible work. He remarked that the animal was a fine, showy creature. The rider asked whether he was Senhor João da Cruz. ‘At your service,’ the farrier replied. ‘I have come to pay you a debt,’ the stranger announced. Surprised, João said he knew of no debt owed by that man. The traveller explained that the debt was not his but his father's, and that his father had charged him to pay it. João asked who the father was. ‘My father was a carrier from Garção named Bento Machado.’ Hardly had those words left his lips when the rider swiftly threw open his cloak. He fired a blunderbuss into the farrier's chest. João staggered back wounded and cried, ‘They have killed me!’ ‘Mariana, I shall never see you again!’ were his last words. The killer spurred the mule into a gallop and had gone perhaps fifty paces when João died. The farrier lay bent over the bench, his face resting on the ground. It was from that same ground that, ten years earlier, João had aimed at the chest of the muleteer Bento Machado. The meaning of that blood debt was therefore complete for the reader.
The travellers who had passed the rider without noticing him gathered around the body. Josefa ran out at the sound of the shot, but did not hear her brother-in-law's last words. She wanted to carry him inside and summon a surgeon. By chance, a surgeon was among the crowd, and he pronounced João dead. Thirty voices asked at once who had killed him. That same day, the Viseu authorities came to make their report and open an inquiry. They found not a single clue to the mysterious murder. The clerk responsible for estates inventoried the objects found there and locked the doors of the house. The bells sounded their final toll as the grave slab fell over João da Cruz. ‘Perhaps God weighed the nobility of your soul against the bloodthirsty instincts of your nature, João!’ When I consider the contradictions in your nature, man who explains Providence to me, I marvel at the strange opposites God breathes into his creatures. Sleep your endless sleep, if no other court summons you to answer for the lives you took and the use you made of your own. But if there is a realm of punishment and mercy, your daughter's tears may have counted as merit before the Supreme Judge.
Josefa had a letter written to Mariana, now orphaned, announcing her father's death. For safety, however, she addressed the letter to Simão Botelho. Mariana was in the prisoner's room when the letter was delivered. Simão said he did not recognise the handwriting and noticed the black wafer sealing the cover. Mariana examined the address, recognised the hand of Joaquim from the shop and turned pale. She urged Simão to open it quickly and asked whether her father might have died. Simão tried to reassure her, recalling that she had received a letter from her father three days earlier. In that letter, João had said that he was well. Mariana replied that this proved nothing and asked him to look at the signature. Simão found it and read the name Josefa Maria. He explained that it was Mariana's aunt who was writing. Mariana begged him to read it and tell her what Josefa said. The prisoner began to read in silence. Trembling, Mariana asked him to read aloud and saw the colour leave his face. Simão dropped the letter and sat down, overwhelmed.
Mariana rushed to pick up the letter, but Simão took her hand. ‘Poor friend, let us mourn him together, Mariana,’ he murmured. He said that they had both loved João as children would. ‘Then he is dead?’ Mariana cried. ‘He is dead... he was murdered,’ Simão replied. Mariana gave a piercing scream and flung her face against the bars. Simão supported her against his breast with great tenderness and urgency. ‘Mariana, remember that you are my support,’ he began. He chose to believe that João's last words would have commended this unfortunate man to his daughter. He was the one who received the bread of life from Mariana's benevolent hands. ‘Mariana, my dear sister, overcome the grief that may kill you,’ he pleaded. He asked her to master her grief for his sake and called her the friend of his soul. ‘For pity's sake, let me weep!’ Mariana exclaimed. ‘My God, what if I go mad again?’ ‘What would become of me?’ Simão interrupted. He asked to whom Mariana would leave her noble heart to soften that martyrdom for him. Who would carry a friendly word to him in exile and encourage him to keep believing in God? Simão insisted that Mariana would not go mad, because he knew that she cared for and loved him. He trusted that she would bravely face the greatest misfortune that hell might yet devise for him. ‘Weep, my sister, weep; but see me through your tears!’