How was it in the meantime with José himself? He was passing through the furnace of a bitter anguish. Many men, whose love was true as his, have had to do the same. But few come forth from that furnace unscarred, scarce one unscathed. Some hearts its fire burns hard, turning them to stone; some hearts consume in it like dry wood, leaving only ashes behind; while some, perhaps, are melted there, that they may be refined and purified like gold. José could not forget. There was in his nature a dumb, persistent tenacity, both of purpose and of affection. The river might flow for leagues underground, yet its still, strong current would know no change. He rather brooded than thought, rather dreamed than reflected. After that one outburst of fierce agony on the Sachsahuaman Hill, he uttered no complaint, even to himself. Perhaps eventually the doom of his race might come upon him, and stoicism pass gradually into apathy. A Spaniard in his circumstances would have acted differently. Had the rival of Don Francisco Solis been of his own race, the successful suitor would have worn a shirt of mail beneath his broidered doublet, and barred his windows well. For “Honour,” that idol of chivalry—a bloody idol, too, propitiated by many a costly hecatomb—sanctioned almost every kind of treason and violence when glozed over by the name of love. It was fortunate for Don Francisco that he had not torn his prize from a Spanish hidalgo, but from a simple Inca Indian, who reverenced from his heart the Quichua laws of his ancestors, and the Ten Commandments he had learned from Fray Fernando. Quietly, and without a word spoken on either side, José resumed his old position towards Fray Fernando; only he was, if possible, more assiduous than before in rendering those personal ministrations which the monk’s feeble health now made doubly acceptable. A prince amongst his own people, he had yet no sense of degradation in performing even the lowliest offices for his adopted father. He loved him; that was enough. Moreover, in common with all his race, he held the paramount sanctity of the bond of ownership, believing that it ought to supersede, not only every personal consideration, but every other claim. “I am his; he bought me,” was a plea strong enough to justify the most unbounded devotion.[46]