Dolores was neither foolishly jealous nor at all suspicious by nature, and the man was her ideal of truthfulness and honour.  She stood looking at him, resting one hand on the table, while he came slowly towards her, moving almost unconsciously in the direction of her exquisite beauty, as a plant lifts itself to the sun at morning.  He was near to her, and he stretched out his arms as if to draw her to him.  She smiled then, for in his eyes she forgot her trouble for a moment, and she would have kissed him.  But suddenly his face grew grave, and he set his teeth, and instead of taking her into his arms, he took one of her hands and raised it to his lips, as if it had been the hand of his brother’s wife, the young Queen.

“Why?” she asked in surprise, and with a little start.

“You are here under my protection,” he answered.  “Let me have my own way.”

“Yes, I understand.  How good you are to me!” She paused, and then went on, seating herself upon one of the chairs by the table as she spoke.  “You must leave me now,” she said.  “You must lock me in and keep the key.  Then I shall know that I am safe; and in the meantime you must decide how I am to escape—­it will not be easy.”  She stopped again.  “I wonder who that woman was!” she exclaimed at last.

“There was no woman here,” replied Don John, as quietly and assuredly as before.

He was leaning upon the table at the other side, with both hands resting upon it, looking at her beautiful hair as she bent her head.

“Say that you did not see her,” she said, “not that she was not here, for she passed me after all the men, walking very cautiously to make no noise; and when she was in the corridor she ran—­she was young and light-footed.  I could not see her face.”

“You believe me, do you not?” asked Don John, bending over the table a little, and speaking very anxiously.

She turned her face up instantly, her eyes wide and bright.

“Should I be here if I did not trust you and believe you?” she asked almost fiercely.  “Do you think—­do you dare to think—­that I would have passed your door if I had supposed that another woman had been here before me, and had been turned out to make room for me, and would have stayed here—­here in your room—­if you had not sent her away?  If I had thought that, I would have left you at your door forever.  I would have gone back to my father.  I would have gone to Las Huelgas to-morrow, and not to be a prisoner, but to live and die there in the only life fit for a broken-hearted woman.  Oh, no!  You dare not think that,—­you who would dare anything!  If you thought that, you could not love me as I love you,—­believing, trusting, staking life and soul on your truth and faith!”

The generous spirit had risen in her eyes, roused not against him, but by all his question might be made to mean; and as she met his look of grateful gladness her anger broke away, and left only perfect love and trust behind it.