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On 4 August 1805, João da Cruz sat sadly at the table, without any appetite. His sister-in-law Josefa asked why he was not eating; João touched his throat, where the food stopped. He missed Mariana and would give everything to see her beside him. Her eyes, he said, seemed to reach the sorrows hidden in a man's heart. He cursed the misfortunes that had taken her from him, perhaps briefly, perhaps for ever. Had he not shot the muleteer, he would not have owed the magistrate a debt. In that case, he would not have cared whether the magistrate's son lived or died. Josefa suggested bringing Mariana home for a while and then sending her back to Simão. João refused: without Mariana, Simão would die of shock inside the prison. Despite the cost, he decided to go to Porto the next day. Josefa approved, and João repeated the proverb: ‘Let the rings go, but keep the fingers.’ His own strength had overcome everything; Mariana would have to accept having less, for she had chosen that path. As he planned the journey, he brightened and felt the pressure in his throat ease.
After eating, however, he began brooding again and wondered whether Mariana might be ill or dead. Josefa dismissed his fear, blamed it on indigestion and advised him to get some air and work. At the forge, his acquaintances found João silent and in no mood for jokes. He sent them on their way, for he was in no mood to talk. He put down his hammer, scratched his head and resumed work distractedly. He damaged the nails or struck his fingers with the hammer. He called it the devil's work and drank straight from a jug, trying to drown the dark foreboding. The narrator humorously compares him to an elegant man trying to forget his passions with absinthe.
Despite the heat, a rider appeared in a Spanish cloak, mounted on a strong mule. With his eyes hidden by his hat, he greeted João, who examined and praised the mule. The man asked whether he was João da Cruz, and the farrier confirmed that he was. He said that he had come to repay a debt, but João replied: ‘You owe me nothing.’ The stranger said that the debt belonged to his father, who had sent him to repay it. Asked his father's name, he replied: ‘Bento Machado, a muleteer from Garção.’ Before finishing, he threw back his cloak and fired a blunderbuss into João's chest. João staggered back and cried: ‘They have killed me!... Mariana, I shall never see you again!...’ The killer galloped away before anyone could recognise him. The reader understands the false debt: Bento Machado's unnamed son was avenging his father. João died with his face against the ground. Ten years earlier, from that spot, he had shot Bento in the chest; that killing had caused the revenge.
Travellers surrounded the body; Josefa came running but did not hear João's last words. A surgeon in the crowd examined João and declared him dead. Everyone asked who had killed him, but no one identified the man in the cloak. Despite what the reader knew, the Viseu authorities investigated without finding any clue. The clerk responsible for estates made an inventory of the property and closed the house. The bells gave their final funeral toll as the stone fell over João's grave.
The narrator addresses João: his bloodthirsty instincts coexisted with a noble soul. Perhaps God, he suggests, weighed that nobility against the violence. João's contradictions made the narrator think of the moral contrasts of providence. He tells João to sleep for ever, if no court calls him to answer for the lives he took. But if punishment and mercy exist, Mariana's tears may count as merit before the Supreme Judge.
Josefa had someone write to Mariana but, for security, addressed the letter to Simão. Mariana was in the prisoner's room when the news of her father's death arrived. Simão did not recognise the handwriting, and the black wafer sealing the letter caused unease. Mariana turned pale when she recognised the handwriting of Joaquim the shopkeeper. She asked Simão to open it quickly and wondered whether her father might have died. Simão tried to reassure her: three days earlier, João had written to say that he was well. Mariana replied that this proved nothing; Simão found the signature of her aunt, Josefa Maria. Mariana begged him to read it; Simão read silently, and she saw him turn pale. Simão dropped the letter and sat down crushed; then he took Mariana's hand.
He murmured that they should both mourn their poor friend, for they had loved him as children love a father. ‘Then he is dead?’ Mariana cried; Simão replied: ‘He is dead... he was killed!...’ Mariana screamed and struck her face against the bars; Simão tenderly drew her to his breast. Simão did not know João's true last words; only a consoling supposition followed. He asked Mariana to remember that she was his support. He supposed that her father's last words entrusted to her the unfortunate man who received the bread of life from her. He called her ‘my dear sister’ and asked her, for his sake, to overcome her grief. He asked: ‘Do you hear me, friend of my soul?’ Mariana begged him to let her cry and feared that she might go mad again. ‘What would become of me?’ Simão interrupted. To whom would Mariana leave her noble heart to ease his suffering? Who would bring him a friendly word in exile, helping him believe in God? He insisted that she would not go mad, for he knew that she cared for and loved him. He trusted that Mariana would bravely face the greatest misfortune that hell might yet send him. He ended: ‘Cry, my sister, cry; but keep looking at me through your tears!’