at full speed after some unknown person.  It would be bad enough if she were recognized walking alone at night at a distance from her own apartments.  She drew her veil over her face so closely that she could hardly see her way, and began to retrace her steps towards the principal staircase, pondering as to what she should say to Mendoza when he discovered that she had allowed his daughter to escape.  She was a woman of manlike intelligence and not easily unbalanced by a single reverse, however, and before she had gone far her mind began to work clearly.  Dolores, she reasoned, would do one of two things.  She would either go straight to Don John’s apartments, wait for him, and then tell him her story, in the hope that he would protect her, or she would go to the Duchess Alvarez and seek protection there.  Under no circumstances would she go down to the throne room without her court dress, for her mere appearance there, dressed as she was, would produce the most profound astonishment, and could do her no possible good.  And as for her going to the Duchess, that was impossible, too.  If she had run away from Dona Ana, she had done so because the idea of not seeing Don John for two days was intolerable, and she meant to try and see him at once.  The Duchess was in all probability with the Queen, in the latter’s private apartments, as Dolores would know.  On the whole, it seemed far more likely that she had done the rashest thing that had suggested itself to her, and had gone directly to the man she loved,—­a man powerful enough to protect her against all comers, at the present time, and quite capable of facing even the King’s displeasure.

But the whole object of Dona Ana’s manoeuvre had been to get possession of Dolores’ person, as a means of strongly influencing Don John’s actions, in order thus to lead him into a false position from which he should not be able to escape without a serious quarrel with King Philip, which would be the first step towards the execution of the plot elaborated by Dona Ana and Perez together.  Anything which could produce an open difference between the brothers would serve to produce two parties in Spain, of which the one that would take Don John’s side would be by far the stronger.  His power would be suddenly much increased, an organized agitation would be made throughout the country to set him on the throne, and his popularity, like Caesar’s, would grow still more, when he refused the crown, as he would most certainly do.  But just then King Philip would die suddenly of a fever, or a cold, or an indigestion, as the conspirators thought best.  There would be no direct male heir to the throne but Don John himself, the acknowledged son of the Emperor Charles; and even Don John would then be made to see that he could only serve his country by ruling it, since it cried out for his rule and would have no other.  It was a hard and dangerous thing to lead King Philip; it would be an easy matter to direct King John.