how
to give him. But he had only been dizzy with the unconscious effort he
had made, and presently he rested on his own hand again.

"Thank God Dolores is safe!" he said, in a weak voice. "Can you help me
to get to a chair, my dear child? I must have been badly stunned. I
wonder how long I have been here. I remember--"

He paused and passed one hand over his eyes. The first instinct of
strong persons who have been unconscious is to think aloud, and to try
and recall every detail of the accident that left them unconscious.

"I remember--the King was here--we talked and we quarrelled--oh!"

The short exclamation ended his speech, as complete recollection
returned, and he knew that the secret must be kept, for his brother's
sake. He laid one head on the slight girl's shoulder to steady himself,
and with his other he helped himself to kneel on one knee.

"I am very dizzy," he said. "Try and help me to a chair, Inez."

She rose swiftly, holding his hand, and then putting one arm round him
under his own. He struggled to his feet and leaned his weight upon her,
and breathed hard. The effort hurt him where the flesh was torn.

"I am wounded, too," he said quietly, as he glanced at the blood on his
vest. "But it is nothing serious, I think."

With the instinct of the soldier hurt in the chest, he brushed his lips
with the small lace ruffle of his sleeve, and looked at it, expecting to
see the bright red stains that might mean death. There was nothing.

"It is only a scratch," he said, with an accent of indifference. "Help
me to the chair, my dear."

"Where?" she asked. "I do not know the room."

"One forgets that you are blind," he answered, with a smile, and leaning
heavily upon her, he led her by his weight, till he could touch the
chair in which he had sat reading Dolores' letter when the King had
entered an hour earlier.

He sat down with a sigh of relief, and stretched first one leg and then
the other, and leaned back with half-closed eyes.

"Where is Dolores?" he asked at last. "Why did she go away?"

"The jester took her away, I think," answered Inez. "I found them
together on the terrace. She was trying to come back to you, but he
prevented her. They thought you were dead."

"That was wise of him." He spoke faintly still, and when he opened his
eyes, the room swam with him. "And then?"

"Then I told her what had happened at court; I had heard everything from
the gallery. And Dolores went down alone. I c