He has been forbidden to touch anything belonging to the people.

One day when a little child fell into a shallow ditch as he was passing, he helped to get it out.

The child's father complained to the gobernadorcillo, who ordered that the leper be flogged through the streets and that the rattan be burned afterwards.

It was horrible! The leper fled with his flogger in pursuit, while the gobernadorcillo cried, 'Catch him! Better be drowned than get the disease you have!'" "Can it be true!" murmured Maria Clara, then, without saying what she was about to do, went up to the wretch's basket and dropped into it the locket her father had given her.
"What have you done ?" her friends asked.
"I hadn't anything else," she answered, trying to conceal her tears with a smile.
"What is he going to do with your locket ?" Victoria asked her.

"One day they gave him some money, but he pushed it away with a stick; why should he want it when no one accepts anything that comes from him?
As if the locket could be eaten!" Maria Clara gazed enviously at the women who were selling food-stuffs and shrugged her shoulders.