“Condemned to death!” she cried out, almost incoherently, before he had finished speaking.  “But they cannot condemn you—­I have told them that I was there—­that it was not you—­they must believe me—­O God of mercy!”

“They believe you—­yes.  They believe that I found you together and killed him.  I shall be tried by judges, but I am condemned beforehand, and I must die.”  He spoke calmly enough.  “Your mad confession before the court only made my conviction more certain,” he said.  “It gave the reason for the deed—­and it burned away the last doubt I had.  If they are slow in trying me, you will have been before the executioner, for he will find me dead—­by your hand.  You might have spared me that—­and spared yourself.  You still had the remnant of a good name, and your lover being dead, you might have worn the rag of your honour still.  You have chosen to throw it away, and let me know my full disgrace before I die a disgraceful death.  And yet you wish to speak to me.  Do you expect my blessing?”

Dolores had lost the power of speech.  Passing her hand now and then across her forehead, as though trying to brush away a material veil, she stood half paralyzed, staring wildly at him while he spoke.  But when she saw him turn away from her towards the door, as if he would go out and leave her there, her strength was loosed from the spell, and she sprang before him and caught his wrists with her hands.

“I am as innocent as when my mother bore me,” she said, and her low voice rang with the truth.  “I told the lie to save your life.  Do you believe me now?”

He gazed at her with haggard eyes for many moments before he spoke.

“How can it be true?” he asked, but his voice shook in his throat.  “You were there—­I saw you leave his room—­”

“No, that you never saw!” she cried, well knowing how impossible it was, since she had been locked in till after he had gone away.

“I saw your dress—­not this one—­what you wore this afternoon.”

“Not this one?  I put on this court dress before I got out of the room in which you had locked me up.  Inez helped me—­I pretended that I was she, and wore her cloak, and slipped away, and I have not been back again.  You did not see me.”

Mendoza passed his hand over his eyes and drew back from her.  If what she said were true, the strongest link was gone from the chain of facts by which he had argued so much sorrow and shame.  Forgetting himself and his own near fate, he looked at the court dress she wore, and a mere glance convinced him that it was not the one he had seen.

“But—­” he was suddenly confused—­“but why did you need to disguise yourself?  I left the Princess of Eboli with you, and I gave her permission to take you away to stay with her.  You needed no disguise.”

“I never saw her.  She must have found Inez in the room.  I was gone long before that.”