At Tarragona a lucky accident threw the Lagounias in her way, under
circumstances which enabled her to recognize the integrity of the
Spaniard and the noble virtue of his wife. She came to them at a time
when her proposal seemed that of a liberating angel. The fortune and
honor of the merchant, momentarily compromised, required a prompt and
secret succor. La Marana made over to the husband the whole sum she
had obtained of the father for Juana's "dot," requiring neither
acknowledgment nor interest. According to her own code of honor, a
contract, a trust, was a thing of the heart, and God its supreme
judge. After stating the miseries of her position to Dona Lagounia,
she confided her daughter and her daughter's fortune to the fine old
Spanish honor, pure and spotless, which filled the precincts of that
ancient house. Dona Lagounia had no child, and she was only too happy
to obtain one to nurture. The mother then parted from her Juana,
convinced that the child's future was safe, and certain of having
found her a mother, a mother who would bring her up as a Mancini, and
not as a Marana.

Leaving her child in the simple modest house of the merchant where the
burgher virtues reigned, where religion and sacred sentiments and
honor filled the air, the poor prostitute, the disinherited mother was
enabled to bear her trial by visions of Juana, virgin, wife, and
mother, a mother throughout her life. On the threshold of that house
Marana left a tear such as the angels garner up.

Since that day of mourning and hope the mother, drawn by some
invincible presentiment, had thrice returned to see her daughter. Once
when Juana fell ill with a dangerous complaint: