“His Highness sent you to find Dona Dolores,” she said.  “Is that not true?”

“It is true,” replied Adonis.  “But,” he added, anticipating her wish out of fear, “it is not easy to find Dona Dolores.”

“It is impossible.  Did you expect to find her by waiting in this corner!  Adonis, it is safer for you to serve me than Don John, and in serving me you will help his interests.  You know that.  Listen to me—­Dona Dolores must believe him dead till to-morrow morning.  She must on no account find out that he is alive.”

At that moment the officer who had offered to get information for the dwarf returned.  Seeing the latter in conversation with such a great personage, he waited at a little distance.

“If you have found out where Dona Dolores de Mendoza is at this moment, my dear sir,” said Adonis, “pray tell the Princess of Eboli, who is very anxious to know.”

The officer bowed and came nearer.

“Dona Dolores de Mendoza is in his Majesty’s inner apartment,” he said.

* * * * *

CHAPTER XX

Dolores and Ruy Gomez had passed through the outer vestibule, and he left her to pursue his way towards the western end of the Alcazar, which was at a considerable distance from the royal apartments.  Dolores went down the corridor till she came to the niche and the picture before which Don John had paused to read the Princess of Eboli’s letter after supper.  She stopped a moment, for she suddenly felt that her strength was exhausted and that she must rest or break down altogether.  She leaned her weight against the elaborately carved railing that shut off the niche like a shrine, and looked at the painting, which was one of Raphael’s smaller masterpieces, a Holy Family so smoothly and delicately painted that it jarred upon her at that moment as something untrue and out of all keeping with possibility.  Though most perfectly drawn and coloured, the spotlessly neat figures with their airs of complacent satisfaction seemed horribly out of place in the world of suffering she was condemned to dwell in, and she fancied, somewhat irreverently and resentfully, that they would look as much out of keeping with their surroundings in a heaven that must be won by the endurance of pain.  Their complacent smiles seemed meant for her anguish, and she turned from the picture in displeasure, and went on.

She was going back to her sister on the terrace, and she was going to kneel once more beside the dear head of the man she had loved, and to say one last prayer before his face was covered for ever.  At the thought she felt that she needed no rest again, for the vision drew her to the sorrowful presence of its reality, and she could not have stopped again if she had wished to.  She must go straight on, on to the staircase, up the long flight of steps, through the lonely corridors, and out at hist to the moonlit terrace where Inez