Perhaps he would make the trip by land, in order to arrive sooner.
Esteban was astounded to see that his mother did not accept this absence as an insignificant event.

The good lady appeared greatly troubled and her eyes filled with tears.

Her feminine instinct made her suspect something ominous in her husband's delay.
In the afternoon, when her old lover, the professor, visited her as usual, the two talked slowly with guarded words but with eyes of understanding and long intervals of silence.
When Don Pedro reached the height of his glorious career, the possession of a professorship in the institute of Barcelona, he used to visit Cinta every afternoon, passing an hour and a half in her parlor with chronometric exactitude.

Never did the slightest impure thought agitate the professor.

The past had fallen into oblivion....