After returning to Barcelona, Nuria Monfort lets time pass before visiting Miquel Moliner again, uneasy about speaking of Julián Carax. When she finally sees Miquel, he is thinner, financially strained, and increasingly self-destructive; his brothers’ lawyers are trying to evict him from the Puertaferrissa mansion because he can no longer afford its upkeep.

Nuria keeps visiting Miquel each Sunday, partly to pull him away from isolation and partly because only he knows the full truth about Julián and Penélope Aldaya. Obsessed by the absent Penélope, Nuria imagines her as an unbeatable rival and convinces herself that learning the truth will “liberate” Julián—and herself. During a walk, Miquel again hints at his desire for her, and Nuria knowingly begins an affair with him out of loneliness, spite, and desperation; Miquel drinks more heavily, and their relationship becomes mutually painful.

Nearly a year later, Nuria presses Miquel to tell her what happened to Penélope. Drunk and furious, Miquel turns violent, then collapses into remorse and agrees to explain. He reveals that in 1919, before Julián left for Paris, Miquel already knew Penélope would not meet him: Don Ricardo Aldaya had discovered the lovers together, dismissed the governess Jacinta Coronado, and locked Penélope up. A doctor was summoned in secret, and Don Ricardo threatened him into silence; Jorge Aldaya believed Penélope might be pregnant. To save Julián from being trapped and destroyed in Barcelona, Miquel let him depart believing Penélope would follow.

After Julián vanished, Don Ricardo unleashed the police, blamed Julián’s father (the hatter), and turned the household into a battlefield. Jorge, having uncovered a deeper reason behind his father’s rage, confronted Miquel, ended their friendship, and threatened to kill him if he spoke of what Jorge had confided. From Paris, Julián wrote constantly, always enclosing letters for Penélope that Miquel mailed pointlessly while knowing she remained imprisoned.

Jorge later ambushed Miquel and handed him a letter in Penélope’s handwriting claiming she would marry and had never loved Julián. Miquel refused to send it, convinced Penélope wrote under coercion and was trying to protect Julián. Soon afterward, Miquel learned Don Ricardo had committed Jacinta to the Horta asylum and had her broken into “submission.” Following Jacinta’s note, Miquel deduced Penélope had once managed to send a real letter to Julián via his parents’ address, but when Miquel went to retrieve it, Julián’s father denied having a son and Sophie Carax had fled. A neighbor, Viçenteta, directed Miquel to a boardinghouse where Sophie was waiting to leave for America; after reading Penélope’s forced letter, Sophie finally confessed the secret at the root of everything: Julián and Penélope are brother and sister.