Magdalena returned to the hamlet pale and full of amazement. They waited in vain for Marta all that night.

On the afternoon of the following day, the village girls found a broken water-jar at the margin of the fountain in the grove. It was Marta’s water-jar; nothing more was ever known of her. Since then the girls go for water so early that they rise with the sun. A few have assured me that by night there has been heard, more than once, the weeping of Marta, whose spirit lives imprisoned in the fountain. I do not know what credit to give to this last part of the story, for the truth is that since that night nobody has dared penetrate into the grove to hear it after the ringing of the Ave María.