“He has the letter,” she whispered quickly.  “I found him by accident, very quickly.  I am to say to you that after he has been some time in the great hall, he will slip away and come here.  You see our father will be on duty and cannot come up.”

Dolores’ hand trembled violently.

“He swore to me that he would kill Don John if he came here,” she whispered.  “He will do it, if it costs his own life!  You must find him again—­go quickly, dear, for the love of Heaven!” Her anxiety increased.  “Go—­go, darling—­do not lose a moment—­he may come sooner—­save him, save him!”

“I cannot go,” answered Inez, in terror, as she understood the situation.  “I had hidden myself, and I am locked in with you.  He called me, but I kept quiet, for I knew he would not let me stay.”  She buried her face in her hands and sobbed aloud in an agony of fear.

Dolores’ lips were white, and she steadied herself against a chair.

* * * * *

CHAPTER III

Dolores stood leaning against the back of the chair, neither hearing nor seeing her sister, conscious only that Don John was in danger and that she could not warn him to be on his guard.  She had not believed herself when she had told her father that he would not dare to lift his hand against the King’s half brother.  She had said the words to give herself courage, and perhaps in a rush of certainty that the man she loved was a match for other men, hand to hand, and something more.  It was different now.  Little as she yet knew of human nature, she guessed without reasoning that a man who has been angry, who has wavered and given way to what he believes to be weakness, and whose anger has then burst out again, is much more dangerous than before, because his wrath is no longer roused against another only, but also against himself.  More follies and crimes have been committed in that second tide of passion than under a first impulse.  Even if Mendoza had not fully meant what he had said the first time, he had meant it all, and more, when he had last spoken.  Once more the vision of fear rose before Dolores’ eyes, nobler now; because it was fear for another and not for herself, but therefore also harder to conquer.

Inez had ceased from sobbing now, and was sitting quietly in her accustomed seat, in that attitude of concentrated expectancy of sounds which is so natural to the blind, that one can almost recognize blindness by the position of the head and body without seeing the face.  The blind rarely lean back in a chair; more often the body is quite upright, or bent a little forward, the face is slightly turned up when there is total silence, often turned down when a sound is already heard distinctly; the knees are hardly ever crossed, the hands are seldom folded together, but are generally spread out, as if ready to help the hearing by the sense of touch—­the lips are