My health improved at the same rate as my spirits, a snail’s pace. I was still all skin and bones, and the pallid tone of my complexion contrasted with the faces around me tanned by the summer sun. My emotions were still taut, my soul weary; I still felt as torn apart by Ramiro’s abandonment as I had on that first day. I was still pining for the child whose existence I had only been aware of for a few hours, and I was once again consumed with worry over what had become of my mother in Madrid. Still frightened by the charges against me and by Don Claudio’s warnings, terrorized at the thought of
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