Inez had stopped and had finished her speech, as if something had choked her.  She turned sideways in her chair when she had spoken, as if to listen better, for she was seated with her back to the light.

“I will tell you everything,” said Maria Dolores softly.  “It will be almost as if you could see him, too.”

“Almost—­”

Inez spoke the one word and broke off abruptly, and rose from her chair.  In the familiar room she moved almost as securely as if she could see.  She went to the window and listened.  Dolores came and stood beside her.

“What is it, dear?” she asked.  “What is the matter?  What has hurt you?  Tell me!”

“Nothing,” answered the blind girl, “nothing, dear.  I was thinking—­how lonely I shall be when you and he are married, and they send me to a convent, or to our dismal old house in Valladolid.”

A faint colour came into her pale face, and feeling it she turned away from Dolores; for she was not speaking the truth, or at least not half of it all.

“I will not let you go!” answered Dolores, putting one arm round her sister’s waist.  “They shall never take you from me.  And if in many years from now we are married, you shall always be with us, and I will always take care of you as I do now.”

Inez sighed and pressed her forehead and blind eyes to the cold window, almost withdrawing herself from the pressure of Dolores’ arm.  Down below there was tramping of heavy feet, as the companies of foot guards took their places, marching across the broad space, in their wrought steel caps and breastplates, carrying their tasselled halberds on their shoulders.  An officer’s voice gave sharp commands.  The gust that had brought the rain had passed by, and a drizzling mist, caused by a sudden chill, now completely obscured the window.

“Can you see anything?” asked Inez suddenly, in a low voice.  “I think I hear trumpets far away.”

“I cannot see—­there is mist on the glass, too.  Do you hear the trumpets clearly?”

“I think I do.  Yes—­I hear them clearly now.”  She stopped.  “He is coming,” she added under her breath.

Dolores listened, but she had not the almost supernatural hearing of the blind, and could distinguish nothing but the tramping of the soldiers below, and her sister’s irregular breathing beside her, as Inez held her breath again and again in order to catch the very faint and distant sound.

“Open the window,” she said almost sharply, “I know I hear the trumpets.”

Her delicate fingers felt for the bolts with almost feverish anxiety.  Dolores helped her and opened the window wide.  A strain of distant clarions sounding a triumphant march came floating across the wet city.  Dolores started, and her face grew radiant, while her fresh lips opened a little as if to drink in the sound with the wintry air.  Beside her, Inez grew slowly pale and held herself by the edge of the window frame, gripping it hard, and neither of the two girls felt any sensation of cold.  Dolores’ grey eyes grew wide and bright as she gazed fixedly towards the city where the avenue that led to the palace began, but Inez, bending a little, turned her ear in the same direction, as if she could not bear to lose a single note of the music that told her how Don John of Austria had come home in triumph, safe and whole, from his long campaign in the south.