“It is necessary that your Majesty should return at once to the throne room, as if nothing had happened,” said Mendoza.  “Your Majesty should be talking unconcernedly with some ambassador or minister when the news is brought that his Highness is dead.”

“And who shall bring the news?” asked Philip calmly, as if he were speaking to an indifferent person.

“I will, Sire,” answered Mendoza firmly.

“They will tear you in pieces before I can save you,” returned Philip, in a thoughtful tone.

“So much the better.  I shall die for my King, and your Majesty will be spared the difficulty of pardoning a deed which will be unpardonable in the eyes of the whole world.”

“That is true,” said the King meditatively.  “But I do not wish you to die, Mendoza,” he added, as an afterthought.  “You must escape to France or to England.”

“I could not make my escape without your Majesty’s help, and that would soon be known.  It would then be believed that I had done the deed by your Majesty’s orders, and no good end would have been gained.”

“You may be right.  You are a very brave man, Mendoza—­the bravest I have ever known.  I thank you.  If it is possible to save you, you shall be saved.”

“It will not be possible,” replied the soldier, in a low and steady voice.  “If your Majesty will return at once to the throne room, it may be soon over.  Besides, it is growing late, and it must be done before the whole court.”

They entered the corridor, and the King walked a few steps before Mendoza, covering his head with the hood of his cloak lest any one should recognize him, and gradually increasing his distance as the old man fell behind.  Descending by a private staircase, Philip reentered his own apartments by a small door that gave access to his study without obliging him to pass through the antechamber, and by which he often came and went unobserved.  Alone in his innermost room, and divested of his hood and cloak, the King went to a Venetian mirror that stood upon a pier table between the windows, and examined his face attentively.  Not a trace of excitement or emotion was visible in the features he saw, but his hair was a little disarranged, and he smoothed it carefully and adjusted it about his ears.  From a silver box on the table he took a little scented lozenge and put it into his mouth.  No reasonable being would have suspected from his appearance that he had been moved to furious anger and had done a murderous deed less than twenty minutes earlier.  His still eyes were quite calm now, and the yellow gleam in them had given place to their naturally uncertain colour.  With a smile of admiration for his own extraordinary powers, he turned and left the room.  He was enjoying one of his rare moments of satisfaction, for the rival he had long hated and was beginning to dread was never to stand in his way again nor to rob him of the least of his attributes of sovereignty.