And then began a struggle fierce and grim, that tore his soul and wounded his heart as no death agony could have hurt him.  Since he had judged her unjustly, since it had all been a hideous dream, since she was still the child that had been all in all to him throughout her life, since all was changed, he did not wish to die, he bore the dead man no hatred, it was no soothing satisfaction to his outraged heart to know him dead of a sword wound in the breast, far away in the room where they had left him, there was no fierce regret that he had not driven the thrust himself.  The man was as innocent as the innocent girl, and he himself, as innocent as both, was to be led out to die to shield the King—­no more.  His life was to be taken for that only, and he no longer set its value at naught nor wished it over.  He was the mere scapegoat, to suffer for his master’s crime, since crime it was and nothing better.  And since he was willing to bear the punishment, or since there was now no escape from it, had he not at least the human right to proclaim his innocence to the only being he really loved?  It would be monstrous to deny it.  What could she do, after all, even if she knew the truth?  Nothing.  No one would dare to believe her if she accused the King.  She would be shut up in a convent as a mad woman, but in any case, she would certainly disappear to end her life in some religious house as soon as he was dead.  Poor girl—­she had loved Don John with all her heart—­what could the world hold for her, even if the disgrace of her father’s death were not to shut her out of the world altogether, as it inevitably must.  She would not live long, but she would live in the profoundest sorrow.  It would be an alleviation, almost the greatest possible, to know that her father’s hand was not stained by such a deed.

The temptation to speak out was overwhelming, and he knew that the time was short.  At any moment Ruy Gomez might open the door, and bid him part from her, and there would be small chance for him of seeing her again.  He stood uncertain, with bent head and folded arms, and she watched him, trying to bring herself to touch his hand again and bear his kiss.

His loyalty to the King, that was like a sort of madness, stood between him and the words he longed to say.  It was the habit of his long soldier’s life, unbending as the corslet he wore and enclosing his soul as the steel encased his body, proof against every cruelty, every unkindness, every insult.  It was better to die a traitor’s death for the King’s secret than to live for his own honour.  So it had always seemed to him, since he had been a boy and had learned to fight under the great Emperor.  But now he knew that he wavered as he had never done in the most desperate charge, when life was but a missile to be flung in the enemy’s face, and found or not, when the fray was over.  There was no intoxication of fury now, there was no far ring of glory in the air, there was no victory to be won.