Robbers had laid in wait for him in the darkness of night, and cast him bound into a subterranean cave, in order to obtain a heavy ransom.

The agents of the bailiff discovered him and liberated him unharmed.

If God has so decreed, why may not the same have happened to the Signor Geronimo?
You are silent, Mary.

You cannot deny that a similar train of circumstances may have been the cause of his disappearance.

Is it not so?
but you yield to despair, and even in the act of begging consolation from Almighty God, you reject obstinately every motive of consolation." "Pity me, dear Petronilla," answered the young girl; "your kind words are a solace to me, but I dare not open my heart to the whisperings of hope.
If I accepted your explanations, and afterwards heard of Geronimo's death, it would be double suffering to me.