clear cheek and she grew softly pale, till she seemed almost delicate.
Then the sensitive nostrils quivered almost imperceptibly, and the
curving lips met closely as if to keep a secret; but that look came
seldom, and for the most part her eyes were quiet and her mouth was
kind. It was a face that expressed devotion, womanly courage, and
sensitiveness rather than an active and dominating energy. The girl was
indeed a full-grown woman, more than twenty years of age, but the early
bloom of girlhood was on her still, and if there was a little sadness in
the eyes, a man could guess well enough that it rose from the heart, and
had but one simple source, which was neither a sudden grief nor a
long-hidden sorrow, but only youth's one secret--love. Maria Dolores de
Mendoza knew all of fear for the man she loved, that any woman could
know, and much of the hope that is love's early life; but she knew
neither the grief, nor the disappointment, nor the shame for another,
nor for herself, nor any of the bitterness that love may bring. She did
not believe that such things could be wrung from hearts that were true
and faithful; and in that she was right. The man to whom she had given
her heart and soul and hope had given her his, and if she feared for
him, it was not lest he should forget her or his own honour. He was a
man among men, good and true; but he was a soldier, and a leader, who
daily threw his life to the battle, as Douglas threw the casket that
held the Bruce's heart into the thick of the fight, to win it back, or
die. The man she loved was Don John of Austria, the son of the great
dead Emperor Charles the Fifth, the uncle of dead Don Carlos and the
half brother of King Philip of Spain--the man who won glory by land and
sea, who won back Granada a second time from the Moors, as bravely as
his great grandfather Ferdinand had won it, but less cruelly, who won
Lepanto, his brother's hatred and a death by poison, the foulest stain
in Spanish history.