blet and run through the outer flesh beneath his left
arm, as he stood sideways with his right thrust forward. The wound was a
mere scratch, as soldiers count wounds, and though the young blood had
followed quickly, it had now ceased to flow. It was the fall that had
hurt him, not the stab. The carpet had slipped from under his feet, and
he had fallen backwards to his full length, as a man falls on ice, and
his head had struck the marble floor so violently that he had lain half
an hour almost in a swoon, like a dead man at first, with neither breath
nor beating of the heart to give a sign of life, till after Dolores had
left him; and then he had sighed back to consciousness by very slow
degrees, because no one was there to help him, to raise his head a few
inches from the floor, to dash a little cold water into his face.

He stirred uneasily now, and moved his hands again, and his eyes opened
wide. Inez felt the slight motion and heard his regular breathing, and
an instinct told her that he was conscious, and not in a dream as he had
been when he had kissed her.

"I am Inez," she said, almost mechanically, and not knowing why she had
feared that he should take her for her sister. "I found your Highness
here--they all think that you are dead."

"Dead?" There was surprise in his voice, and his eyes looked at her and
about the room as he spoke, though he did not yet lift his head from the
hood on which it lay. "Dead?" he repeated, dazed still. "No--I must have
fallen. My head hurts me."

He uttered a sharp sound as he moved again, more of annoyance than of
suffering, as strong men do who unexpectedly find themselves hurt or
helpless, or both. Then, as his eyes fell upon the open door of the
inner room, he forgot his pain instantly and raised himself upon his
hand with startled eyes.

"Where is Dolores?" he cried, in utmost anxiety. "Where have they taken
her? Did she get out by the window?"

"She is safe," answered Inez, hardly knowing what she said, for he
turned pale instantly and had barely heard her answer, when he reeled as
he half sat and almost fell against her.

She held him as well as she could, but the position was strained and she
was not very strong. Half mad now, between fear lest he should die in
her arms and the instinctive belief that he was to live, she wished with
all her heart that some one would come and help her, or send for a
physician. He might die for lack of some simple aid she did not know