he name of Don John. She had heard all,--the cries
when it was thought that he was coming, the chamberlain's voice
announcing the King, and then the change of key in the sounds that had
followed. Lastly, she had heard plainly every syllable of her father's
speech, so that when she realized what it meant, she had shrieked aloud,
and had fled from the gallery to find her sister if she could, to find
Don John's body most certainly where it lay on the marble floor, with
the death wound at the breast. Her instinct--she could not have reasoned
then--told her that her father must have found the lovers together, and
that in sudden rage he had stabbed Don John, defenceless.

Dolores' tears answered her sister's question well enough when the two
girls were clasped in one another's arms at last. There was not a doubt
left in the mind of either. Inez spoke first. She said that she had
hidden in the gallery.

"Our father must have come in some time after the King," she said, in
broken sentences, and almost choking. "Suddenly the music stopped. I
could hear every word. He said that he had done it,--that he had
murdered Don John,--and then I ran here, for I was afraid he had killed
you, too."

"Would God he had!" cried Dolores. "Would to Heaven that I were dead
beside the man I love!"

"And I!" moaned Inez pitifully, and she began to sob wildly, as Dolores
had sobbed at first.

But Dolores was silent now, as if she had shed all her tears at once,
and had none left. She held her sister in her arms, and soothed her
almost unconsciously, as if she had been a little child. But her own
thoughts were taking shape quickly, for she was strong; and after the
first paroxysm of her grief, she saw the immediate future as clearly as
the present. When she spoke again she had the mastery of her voice, and
it was clear and low.

"You say that our father confessed before the whole court that he had
murdered Don John?" she said, with a question. "What happened then? Did
the King speak? Was our father arrested? Can you remember?"

"I only heard loud cries," sobbed Inez. "I came to you--as quickly as I
could--I was afraid."

"We shall never see our father again--unless we see him on the morning
when he is to die."

"Dolores! They will not kill him, too?" In sudden and greater fear than
before, Inez ceased sobbing.

"He will die on the scaffold," answered Dolores, in the same clear tone,
as if she were speaking in a dream, or of things that d