anxious to know."

The officer bowed and came nearer.

"Doña Dolores de Mendoza is in his Majesty's inner apartment," he said.

* * * * *




CHAPTER XX


Dolores and Ruy Gomez had passed through the outer vestibule, and he
left her to pursue his way towards the western end of the Alcazar, which
was at a considerable distance from the royal apartments. Dolores went
down the corridor till she came to the niche and the picture before
which Don John had paused to read the Princess of Eboli's letter after
supper. She stopped a moment, for she suddenly felt that her strength
was exhausted and that she must rest or break down altogether. She
leaned her weight against the elaborately carved railing that shut off
the niche like a shrine, and looked at the painting, which was one of
Raphael's smaller masterpieces, a Holy Family so smoothly and delicately
painted that it jarred upon her at that moment as something untrue and
out of all keeping with possibility. Though most perfectly drawn and
coloured, the spotlessly neat figures with their airs of complacent
satisfaction seemed horribly out of place in the world of suffering she
was condemned to dwell in, and she fancied, somewhat irreverently and
resentfully, that they would look as much out of keeping with their