Part 32 (1/2)

The Princess was very worldly wise, and she saw at a glance that she must tell Dolores the truth. If she did not, the girl would soon learn it from some one else, but if she did, Dolores would always remember who had told her the good news.

”My dear,” she said very gently, ”let my wrist go and let me take your arm. We do not understand each other, or you would not be so angry with me. Something has happened of which you do not know--”

”Oh, no! I know the whole truth!” Dolores interrupted her, and resisted being led along in a slow walk. ”Let me go to him!” she cried. ”I only wish to see him once more--”

”But, dearest child, listen to me--if I do not tell you everything at once, it is because the shock might hurt you. There is some hope that he may not die--”

”Hope! Oh no, no, no! I saw him lying dead--”

”He had fainted, dear. He was not dead--”

”Not dead?” Dolores' voice broke. ”Tell me--tell me quickly.” She pressed her hand to her side.

”No. He came to himself after you had left him--he is alive. No--listen to me--yes, dear, he is alive and not much hurt. The wound was a scratch, and he was only stunned--he is well--to-morrow he will be as well as ever--ah, dear, I told you so!”

Dolores had borne grief, shame, torment of mind that night, as bravely as ever a woman bore all three, but the joy of the truth that he lived almost ended her life then and there. She fell back upon the Princess's arm and threw out her hands wildly, as if she were fighting for breath, and the lids of her eyes quivered violently and then were quite still, and she uttered a short, unnatural sound that was more like a groan of pain than a cry of happiness.

The Princess was very strong, and held her, steadying herself against the wall, thinking anything better than to let her slip to the floor and lie swooning on the stone pavement. But the girl was not unconscious, and in a moment her own strength returned.

”Let me go!” she cried wildly. ”Let me go to him, or I shall die!”

”Go, child--go,” said the Princess, with an accent of womanly kindness that was rare in her voice. But Dolores did not hear it, for she was already gone.

Dolores saw nothing in the room, as she entered, but the eyes of the man she loved, though Inez was still beside him. Dolores threw herself wildly into his arms and hid her face, crying out incoherent words between little showers of happy tears; and her hands softly beat upon his shoulders and against his neck, and stole up wondering to his cheeks and touched his hair, as she drew back her head and held him still to look at him and see that he was whole. She had no speech left, for it was altogether beyond the belief of any sense but touch itself that a man should rise unhurt from the dead, to go on living as if nothing not common had happened in his life, to have his strength at once, to look into her eyes and rain kisses on the lids still dark with grief for his death. Sight could not believe the sight, hearing could not but doubt the sound, yet her hands held him and touched him, and it was he, unhurt saving for a scratch and a bruise. In her overwhelming happiness, she had no questions, and the first syllables that her lips could shape made broken words of love, and of thanks to Heaven that he had been saved alive for her, while her hands still fluttered to his face and beat gently and quickly on his shoulders and his arms, as if fearing lest he should turn to incorporeal light, without substance under her touch, and vanish then in air, as happiness does in a dream, leaving only pain behind.

But at last she threw back her head and let him go, and her hands brushed away the last tears from her grey eyes, and she looked into his face and smiled with parted lips, drinking the sight of him with her breath and eyes and heart. One moment so, and then they kissed as only man and woman can when there has been death between them and it is gone not to come back again.

Then memory returned, though very slowly and broken in many places, for it seemed to her as if she had not been separated from him a moment, and as if he must know all she had done without hearing her story in words.

The time had been so short since she had kissed him last, in the little room beyond: there had been the minutes of waiting until the King had come, and then the trying of the door, and then the quarrel, that had lasted a short ten minutes to end in Don John's fall; then the half hour during which he had lain unconscious and alone till Inez had come at the moment when Dolores had gone down to the throne room; and after that the short few minutes in which she had met her father, and then her interview with the King, which had not lasted long, and now she was with him again; and it was not two hours since they had parted--a lifetime of two hours.

”I cannot believe it!” she cried, and now she laughed at last. ”I cannot, I cannot! It is impossible!”

”We are both alive,” he answered. ”We are both flesh and blood, and breathing. I feel as if I had been in an illness or in a sleep that had lasted very long.”

”And I in an awful dream.” Her face grew grave as she thought of what was but just pa.s.sed. ”You must know it all--surely you know it already--oh, yes! I need not tell it all.”

”Something Inez has told me,” he replied, ”and some things I guess, but I do not know everything. You must try and tell me--but you should not be here--it is late. When my servants know that I am living, they will come back, and my gentlemen and my officers. They would have left me here all night, if I had been really dead, lest being seen near my body should send them to trial for my death.” He laughed. ”They were wise enough in their way. But you cannot stay here.”

”If the whole court found me here, it would not matter,” answered Dolores. ”Their tongues can take nothing from my name which my own words have not given them to feed on.”

”I do not understand,” he said, suddenly anxious. ”What have you said?

What have you done?”

Inez came near them from the window, by which she had been standing. She laid a hand on Dolores' arm.

”I will watch,” she said. ”If I hear anything, I will warn you, and you can go into the small room again.”

She went out almost before either of them could thank her. They had, indeed, forgotten her presence in the room, being accustomed to her being near them; but she could no longer bear to stay, listening to their loving words that made her loneliness so very dark. And now, too, she had memories of her own, which she would keep secret to the end of her life,--beautiful and happy recollections of that sweet moment when the man that seemed dead had breathed and had clasped her in his arms, taking her for the other, and had kissed her as he would have kissed the one he loved. She knew at last what a kiss might be, and that was much; but she knew also what it was to kneel by her dead love and to feel his life come back, breath by breath and beat by beat, till he was all alive; and few women have felt that or can guess how great it is to feel. It was better to go out into the dark and listen, lest any one should disturb the two, than to let her memories of short happiness be marred by hearing words that were not meant for her.

”She found you?” asked Dolores, when she was gone.