y, 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.

"A man would die for you, and wish he might die twice," he answered,
standing upright, as if a weight had been taken from him and he were
free to breathe.

She looked up at the pale, strong features of the young fighter, who was
so great and glorious almost before the down had thickened on his lip;
and she saw something almost above nature in his face,--something high
and angelic, yet manly and well fitted to face earthly battles. He was
her sun, her young god, her perfect image of perfection, the very source
of her trust. It would have killed her to doubt him. Her whole soul went
up to him in her eyes; and as he was ready to die for her, she knew that
for him she would suffer every anguish death could hold, and not flinch.

Then she looked down, and suddenly laughed a little oddly, and her
finger pointed towards the pens and paper.

"She has left something behind," she said. "She was clever to get in
here and slip out again without being seen."

Don John looked where she pointed, and saw a small letter folded round
the stems of two white carnations, and neatly tied with a bit of twisted
silk. It was laid between the paper and the bronze inkstand, and half
hidden by the broad white feather of a goose-quill pen, that seemed to
have been thrown carelessly across the flowers. It lay there as if meant
to be found, only by one who wrote, and not to attract too much
attention.

"Oh!" he exclai