CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XX

* * * * *




CHAPTER I


Two young girls sat in a high though very narrow room of the old Moorish
palace to which King Philip the Second had brought his court when he
finally made Madrid his capital. It was in the month of November, in the
afternoon, and the light was cold and grey, for the two tall windows
looked due north, and a fine rain had been falling all the morning. The
stones in the court were drying now, in patches, but the sky was like a
smooth vault of cast lead, closing over the city that lay to the
northward, dark, wet and still, as if its life had shrunk down under
ground, away from the bitter air and the penetrating damp.