THOMAS BECOMES RICH For many months we heard no more of de Garcia or of Isabella de Siguenza.

Both had vanished leaving no sign, and we searched for them in vain.

As for me I fell back into my former way of life of assistant to Fonseca, posing before the world as his nephew.

But it came about that from the night of my duel with the murderer, my master's health declined steadily through the action of a wasting disease of the liver which baffled all skill, so that within eight months of that time he lay almost bedridden and at the point of death.

His mind indeed remained quite clear, and on occasions he would even receive those who came to consult him, reclining on a chair and wrapped in his embroidered robe.
But the hand of death lay on him, and he knew that it was so.