“We are quite safe here,” he said at last, “safer than anywhere else, I think, for your father cannot come back until the King goes to supper.  For myself, I have an hour, but I have been so surrounded and pestered by visitors in my apartments that I have not found time to put on a court dress—­and without vanity, I presume that I am a necessary figure at court this evening.  Your father is with Perez, who seems to be acting as master of ceremonies and of everything else, as well as the King’s secretary—­they have business together, and the General will not have a moment.  I ascertained that, before coming here, or I should not have come at this hour.  We are safe from him here, I am sure.”

“You know best,” answered Dolores, who was greatly reassured by what he said about Mendoza.

“Let us sit down, then.  You must be tired after all you have done.  And we have much to say to each other.”

“How could I be tired now?” she asked, with a loving smile; but she sat down on the stone seat in the embrasure, close to the window.

It was just wide enough for two to sit there, and Don John took his place beside her, and drew one of her hands silently to him between both his own, and kissed the tips of her fingers a great many times.  But he felt that she was watching his face, and he looked up and saw her eyes—­and then, again, many seconds passed before either could speak.  They were but a boy and girl together, loving each other in the tender first love of early youth, for the victor of the day, the subduer of the Moors, the man who had won back Granada, who was already High Admiral of Spain, and who in some ten months from that time was to win a decisive battle of the world at Lepanto, was a stripling of twenty-three summers—­and he had first seen Dolores when he was twenty and she seventeen, and now it was nearly two years since they had met.

He was the first to speak, for he was a man of quick and unerring determinations that led to actions as sudden as they were bold and brilliant, and what Dolores had told him of her quarrel with her father was enough to rouse his whole energy at once.  At all costs she must never be allowed to pass the gates of Las Huelgas.  Once within the convent, by the King’s orders, and a close prisoner, nothing short of a sacrilegious assault and armed violence could ever bring her out into the world again.  He knew that, and that he must act instantly to prevent it, for he knew Mendoza’s character also, and had no doubt but that he would do what he threatened.  It was necessary to put Dolores beyond his reach at once, and beyond the King’s also, which was not an easy matter within the walls of the King’s own palace, and on such a night.  Don John had been but little at the court and knew next to nothing of its intrigues, nor of the mutual relations of the ladies and high officers who had apartments in the Alcazar.  In his own train there were no women, of course.  Dolores’ brother