swear that I will."

He ceased speaking, turned, and began to walk up and down the small
room, his spurs and sword clanking heavily at every step. He had folded
his arms, and his head was bent low.

A look of horror and fear had slowly risen in Dolores' face, for she
knew her father, and that he kept his word at every risk. She knew also
that the King held him in very high esteem, and was as firmly opposed to
her marriage as Mendoza himself, and therefore ready to help him to do
what he wished. It had never occurred to her that she could be suddenly
thrust out of sight in a religious institution, to be kept there at her
father's pleasure, even for her whole life. She was too young and too
full of life to have thought of such a possibility. She had indeed heard
that such things could be done, and had been done, but she had never
known such a case, and had never realized that she was so completely at
her father's mercy. For the first time in her life she felt real fear,
and as it fell upon her there came the sickening conviction that she
could not resist it, that her spirit was broken all at once, that in a
moment more she would throw herself at her father's feet and implore
mercy, making whatever promise he exacted, yet making it falsely, out of
sheer terror, in an utter degradation and abasement of all moral
strength, of which she had never even dreamed. She grew giddy as she
felt it coming upon her, and the lights of the two candles moved
strangely. Already she saw herself on her knees, sobbing with fear,
trying to take her father's hand, begging forgiveness, denying her love,
vowing submission and dutiful obedience in an agony of terror. For on
the other side she saw the dark corridors and gloomy cells of Las
Huelgas, the veiled and silent nuns, the abomination of despair that was
before her till she should die and escape at last,--the faint hope which
would always prevent her from taking the veil herself, yet a hope
fainter and fainter, crossed by the frightful uncertainty in which she
should be kept by those who guarded her. They would not even tell her
whether the man she loved were alive or dead, she could never know
whether he had given up her love, himself in despair, or whether, then,
as years went by, he would not lose the thread that took him back to the
memory of her, and forget--and love again.

But then her strong nature rose again, and the vision of fear began to
fade as her faith in his love denied the