The look of wonder was not quite gone from her face yet, but she was beginning to understand more clearly, though still very far from distinctly.  It did not occur to her once that such things could be temptations to the brilliant young leader whom every woman admired and every man flattered, and that only his devoted love for her had kept him out of ignoble adventures since he had grown to be a man.  Had she seen that, she would have loved him even better, if it were possible.  It was all, as she had said, shameless and abominable.  She had thought that she knew much of evil, and she had even told him so that evening, but this was far beyond anything she had dreamt of in her innocent thoughts, and she instinctively felt that there were lower depths of degradation to which a woman could fall, and of which she would not try to guess the vileness and horror.

“Shall I burn the flowers, too?” asked Don John, taking them in his hand.

“The flowers?  No.  They are innocent and fresh.  What have they to do with her?  Give them to me.”

He raised them to his lips, looking at her, and then held them out.  She took them, and kissed them, as he had done, and they both smiled happily.  Then she fastened them in her hair.

“No one will see me to-night but you,” she said.  “I may wear flowers in my hair like a peasant woman!”

“How they make the gold gleam!” he exclaimed, as he looked.  “It is almost time that my men came back,” he said sadly.  “When I go down to the court, I shall dismiss them.  After the royal supper I shall try and come here again and see you.  By that time everything will be arranged.  I have thought of almost everything already.  My mother will provide you with everything you need.  To-morrow evening I can leave this place myself to go and see her, as I always do.”

He always spoke of Dona Magdalena Quixada as his mother—­he had never known his own.

Dolores rose from her seat, for he was ready to go.

“I trust you in everything,” she said simply.  “I do not need to know how you will accomplish it all—­it is enough to know that you will.  Tell Inez, if you can—­protect her if my father is angry with her.”

He held out his hand to take hers, and she was going to give it, as she had done before.  But it was too little.  Before he knew it she had thrown her arms round his neck, and was kissing him, with little cries and broken words of love.  Then she drew back suddenly.

“I could not help it,” she said.  “Now lock me in.  No—­do not say good-by—­even for two hours!”

“I will come back as soon as I can,” he answered, and with a long look he left her, closed the door and locked it after him, leaving her alone.