She paused, for she had heard Inez softly close the door as she went out.  The letter at least was safe, and if it were humanly possible, Inez would find a means of delivering it; for she had all that strange ingenuity of the blind in escaping observation which it seems impossible that they should possess, but of which every one who has been much with them is fully aware.  Mendoza had seen Inez go out, and was glad that she was gone, for her blind face sometimes disturbed him when he wished to assert his authority.

“Yes,” he said, “I will tell you what I mean to do, and it is the only thing left to me, for you have given me no choice.  You are disobedient and unruly, you have lost what little respect you ever had—­or showed—­for me.  But that is not all.  Men have had unruly daughters before, and yet have married them well, and to men who in the end have ruled them.  I do not speak of my affection for you both, since you have none for me.  But now, you are going beyond disobedience and lawlessness, for you are ruining yourself and disgracing me, and I will neither permit the one nor suffer the other.”  His voice rose harshly.  “Do you understand me?  I intend to protect my name from you, and yours from the world, in the only way possible.  I intend to send you to Las Huelgas to-morrow morning.  I am in earnest, and unless you consent to give up this folly and to marry as I wish, you shall stay there for the rest of your natural life.  Do you understand?  And until to-morrow morning you shall stay within these doors.  We shall see whether Don John of Austria will try to force my dwelling first and a convent of holy nuns afterwards.  You will be safe from him, I give you my word of honour,—­the word of a Spanish gentleman and of your father.  You shall be safe forever.  And if Don John tries to enter here to-night, I will kill him on the threshold.  I swear that I will.”

He ceased speaking, turned, and began to walk up and down the small room, his spurs and sword clanking heavily at every step.  He had folded his arms, and his head was bent low.

A look of horror and fear had slowly risen in Dolores’ face, for she knew her father, and that he kept his word at every risk.  She knew also that the King held him in very high esteem, and was as firmly opposed to her marriage as Mendoza himself, and therefore ready to help him to do what he wished.  It had never occurred to her that she could be suddenly thrust out of sight in a religious institution, to be kept there at her father’s pleasure, even for her whole life.  She was too young and too full of life to have thought of such a possibility.  She had indeed heard that such things could be done, and had been done, but she had never known such a case, and had never realized that she was so completely at her father’s mercy.  For the first time in her life she felt real fear, and as it fell upon her there came the sickening conviction that she could not resist it, that her spirit was broken all at once,