Why then had he not sought information, which might have proved so deeply interesting to him, directly from Losada himself, his friend and teacher? Several causes contributed to his reluctance to broach the subject. But by far the greatest was a kind of chivalrous, half romantic tenderness for that absent brother, whom he could now truly say that he loved best on earth. It is very difficult for us to put ourselves in the position of Spaniards of the sixteenth century, so far as at all to understand the way in which they were accustomed to look upon heresy. In their eyes it was not only a crime, infinitely more dreadful than that of murder; it was also a horrible disgrace, branding a man's whole lineage up and down for generations, and extending its baleful influence to his remotest kindred. Carlos asked himself, day by day, how would the high-hearted Don Juan Alvarez, whose idol was glory, and his dearest pride a noble and venerated name, endure to hear that his beloved and only brother was stained with that surpassing infamy? But at least it would be anguish enough to stab Juan once, as it were, with his own hand, without arming the dead hand of the father whose memory they both revered, and then driving home the weapon into his brother's heart. Rather would he let the matter remain in obscurity, even if (which was extremely doubtful) he could by any effort of his own shed a ray of light upon it.
Still he took occasion one day to inquire of his friend Fray Fernando, who had received full information on these subjects from the older monks, "Was not that Rodrigo de Valer, whose sanbenito hangs in the Cathedral, the first teacher of the pure faith in Seville?"
"True, señor, he taught many. While he himself, as I have heard, received the faith from none save God only."
"He must have been a remarkable man. Tell me all you know of him."
"Our Fray Cassiodoro has often heard Dr. Egidius speak of him; so that, though his lips were silenced long before your time or mine, señor, he seems still one of our company."
"Yes, already some of our number have joined the Church triumphant, but they are still one with us in Christ."
"Don Rodrigo de Valer," continued the young monk, "was of a noble family, and very wealthy. He was born at Lebrixa, but came to reside in Seville, a gay, light-hearted, brilliant young caballero, who was soon a leader in all the folly and fashion of the great city. But suddenly these things lost their charm for him. Much to the astonishment of the gay world, to which he had been such an ornament, he disappeared from the scenes of amusement and festivity he had been wont to love. His companions could not understand the change that came over him--but we can understand it well. God's arrows of conviction were sharp in his heart. And he led him to turn for comfort, not to penance and self-mortification, but to his own Word. Only in one form was that Word accessible to him. He gathered up the fragments of his old school studies--little cared for at the time, and well-nigh forgotten afterwards--to enable him to read the Vulgate. There he found justification by faith, and, through it, peace to his troubled conscience. But he did not find, as I need scarcely say to you, Don Carlos, purgatory, the worship of Our Lady and the saints, and certain other things our fathers taught us."
"How long since was all this?" asked Carlos, who was listening with much interest, and at the same time comparing the narrative with that other story he had heard from Dolores.
"Long enough, señor. Twenty years ago or more. When God had thus enlightened him, he returned to the world. But he returned to it a new man, determined henceforth to know nothing save Christ and him crucified. He addressed himself in the first instance to the priests and monks, whom, with a boldness truly amazing, he accosted wherever he met them, were it even in the most public places of the city, proving to them from Scripture that their doctrines were not the truth of God."
"It was no hopeful soil in which to sow the Word."