Then she heard footfalls, and one was her father’s.  Two men were coming out by the corridor, and she had not time to reach the sentry-box.  With her hands out before her, she went lightly away from the windows to the outer side of the broad terrace, and cowered down by the balustrade as she ran against it, not knowing whether she was in the moonlight or the shade.  She had crossed like a shadow and was crouching there before Mendoza and the King came out.  She knew by their steady tread, that ended at the door, that they had not noticed her; and as the door closed behind them, she ran back to the window again and listened, expecting to hear loud and angry words, for she could not doubt that the King and her father had discovered that Dolores was there, and had come to take her away.  The Princess must have told Mendoza that Dolores had escaped.  But she only heard men’s voices speaking in an ordinary tone, and she understood that Dolores was concealed.  Almost at once, and to her dismay, she heard her father’s step in the hall, and now she could neither pass the door nor run across the terrace again.  A moment later the King called him from within.  Instantly she slipped across to the other side, and listened again.  They were shaking a door,—­they were in the very act of finding Dolores.  Her heart hurt her.  But then the noise stopped, as if they had given up the attempt, and presently she heard her father’s step again.  Thinking that he would remain in the hall until the King called him,—­for she could not possibly guess what had happened,—­she stood quite still.

The door opened without warning, and he was almost upon her before she knew it.  To hesitate an instant was out of the question, and for the second time that night she fled, running madly to the corridor, which was not ten steps from where she had been standing, and as she entered it the light fell upon her from the swinging lamp, though she did not know it.

Old as he was, Mendoza sprang forward in pursuit when he saw her figure in the dimness, flying before him, but as she reached the light of the lamp he stopped himself, staggering one or two steps and then reeling against the wall.  He had recognized Dolores’ dress and hood, and there was not the slightest doubt in his mind but that it was herself.  In that same dress he had seen her in the late afternoon, she had been wearing it when he had locked her into the sitting-room, and, still clad in it, she must have come out with the Princess.  And now she was running before him from Don John’s lodging.  Doubtless she had been in another room and had slipped out while he was trying the door within.

He passed his hand over his eyes and breathed hard as he leaned against the wall, for her appearance there could only mean one thing, and that was ruin to her and disgrace to his name—­the very end of all things in his life, in which all had been based upon his honour and every action had been a tribute to it.