“Yes—­more than that, much more.  It was not true, but I hoped they would believe it I said—­” the colour filled her face and she caught her breath.  “Oh, how can I tell you?  Can you not guess what I said?”

“That we were married already, secretly?” he asked.  “You might have said that.”

“No.  Not that—­no one would have believed me.  I told them,” she paused and gathered her strength, and then the words came quickly, ashamed of being heard—­“I told them that I knew my father had no share in the crime, because I had been here long to-night, in this room, and even when you were killed, and that I was here because I had given you all, my life, my soul, my honour, everything.”

“Great God!” exclaimed Don John starting.  “And you did that to save your father?”

She had covered her face with her hands for a moment.  Then suddenly she rose and turned away from him, and paced the floor.

“Yes.  I did that.  What was there for me to do?  It was better that I should be ruined and end in a convent than that my father should die on the scaffold.  What would have become of Inez?”

“What would have become of you?” Don John’s eyes followed her in loving wonder.

“It would not have mattered.  But I had thrown away my name for nothing.  They believed me, I think, but the King, to spare himself, was determined that my father should die.  We met as he was led away to prison.  Then I went to the King himself—­and when I came away I had my father’s release in my hand.  Oh, I wish I had that to do again!  I wish you had been there, for you would have been proud of me, then.  I told him he had killed you, I heard him confess it, I threatened to tell the court, the world, all Spain, if he would not set my father free.  But the other—­can you forgive me, dear?”

She stood before him now, and the colour was fainter in her cheeks, for she trusted him with all her heart, and she put out her hands.

“Forgive you?  What?  For doing the bravest thing a woman ever did?”

“I thought you would know it in heaven and understand,” she said.  “It is better that you know it on earth—­but it was hard to tell.”

He held her hands together and pressed them to his lips.  He had no words to tell her what he thought.  Again and again he silently kissed the firm white fingers folded in his own.

“It was magnificent,” he said at last.  “But it will be hard to undo, very hard.”

“What will it ever matter, since we know it is not true?” she asked.  “Let the world think what it will, say what it likes—­”

“The world shall never say a slighting word of you,” he interrupted.  “Do you think that I will let the world say openly what I would not hear from the King alone between these four walls?  There is no fear of that, love.  I will die sooner.”

“Oh, no!” she cried, in sudden fear.  “Oh, do not speak of death again to-night!  I cannot bear the word!”