[Illustration: THE AQUEDUCT NEAR GRANADA.]
save that she has turned deadly pale, has not spoken.
But when the moonlight comes, and Claire is unbinding the long tresses of her hair and combing out those childish curls, now half grey, which lent so sweet an expression to her innocent young face when she came to Valladolid, a knock is heard at the door, and lo! a priest enters.
Now as, from time to time, Blanche has been allowed to confess, this does not startle Claire as much as it might seem; but when the priest says, entering the vaulted chamber and addressing Blanche, “My daughter, have you prayed?” she knows that her hour has come.
A piercing scream escapes from Claire as she falls on her knees beside her mistress, but Blanche rises up with the aspect of a queen.
“My father,” she answers, “I pray always, for I have died out of the world.”
“It is well, my daughter,” and the priest raises his hand over her in benediction as she kneels before him; but there is a tremor in his voice he cannot suppress, and old as he is and practised in the ways of death, tears stand in his eyes as he looks at her young face.
A solemn silence follows neither cares to break.
It is the priest, who speaks first in a voice which trembles spite of himself.
“It is not without reason, my daughter, that we are enjoined to pray. We know not when God may see fit to call our souls to him.”
“I understand,” answers Blanche in a voice so low it can only be heard by reason of the great silence, “you mean I am to die.”
“My daughter,” and now, unable to command his grief, sobs shake his words, and poor Claire, clinging wildly to her mistress, as if by her loving arms she could keep her in life, utters the most piercing cries.
“My sister,” and Blanche turns to her, “for such you are in love, disturb not my last hour with your grief, but rather rejoice with me that I am leaving a world in which I have suffered so much. I wonder I have been allowed to live so long. But, my father,” addressing the priest, “listen to me before I die: I am innocent of the crime imputed to me. I was condemned unheard. But there is a tribunal above, before the living God, to absolve me. There I summon my husband, the King of Castile, to appear. We shall meet shortly. By the sword he has lived; and by the sword he shall die. It has been revealed to me.”