“That does not seem a good prayer, mother,” she said. “How could He lose me? He is God.” “Keep that faith, my child,” replied the nun, a little sorrowfully. _She_ was conscious of many a keen pulsation of fear, not that He would lose her, but that she might somehow lose Him, which would be the same thing practically. But why should she cast the shadow of her own doubt upon her pupil’s more simple trust? Sumac broke the pause that followed. “Mother, I have now a great sin, I am afraid,” she said, in faltering tones. Upon a few occasions—very few—Sumac and Coyllur had attended confession. They had been gently dealt with; yet they both hated it. Coyllur was nearly driven to open rebellion by the requirement; while to Sumac it was a dreaded and formidable ordeal. Yet she liked well to pour her simple confessions into the ear of her chosen teacher and friend; her “mother,” as the motherless girl—motherless almost since the dawn of memory—loved to call her. “What is this sin, my daughter?” asked the nun, tenderly taking and holding the small, brown, transparent hand. “I have much sin, because it hurts me that Coyllur and Viracocha love each other,” was Sumac’s faltering acknowledgment. “What, my child! And do they?” asked the nun, with a perceptible start. “Yes,” said the Indian girl, surprised in her turn at her friend’s surprise. “It is right. He is noble, beautiful, and good; and he is one of our own.” “How far has the matter gone? Does Coyllur really care for him? Is anything settled?” asked Sister Maria, with much more eagerness than might have been expected from her. She pitied the conquered race, and would fain spare them one wrong more, if she could. Sumac looked at her, wondering. “Mother,” she said, “surely you do not wish Coyllur to be a holy virgin? I might, if I live; but never Coyllur. She is too bright, too glad. She is like the little tuyas that go singing all the day from bough to bough. God, when He made her, meant her to be always happy, I am sure.” “May it indeed be so,” said the nun. “No, Lucia, I do not wish to see her undertake the religious life; she has no vocation for it. But, my child, does Prince Paullu know what you have told me now? or even your aunt, Doña Beatriz Coya?” “My grandfather will tell Paullu when it is necessary,” Sumac answered, not without a look that betrayed the distrust and dislike which even her gentle heart harboured towards the Inca who made himself the willing tool of the Spaniard. “My aunt,” she added, “must be well aware of it already; they are both often at her house. And, in sooth, they never go there that I am not filled with fear lest Viracocha should fight with some Spanish caballero for paying attention to my sister.” “He could not be so mad as to fight with a Spaniard! Lucia, my child, if there be still time, if remonstrance still avails—it is for her sake I speak, and for his—”