Blanche--oh! so changed! her young face drawn, her delicate cheeks marked with fine lines, her childlike eyes dim, her slight figure bowed as if by age, her flaxen curls streaked with grey, although she has scarcely reached the years of womanhood--is indeed an object of compassion! All hope gone, knowing that she must die. And so living day by day as the months roll on and she measures the dull routine of sunrise and sunset across those cruel plains, which cut her off from all humanity. One image haunts her, the gallant young Infante who dared to love her. And from him her thoughts wander to his brother, El Caballero, who was about to send her to Navarre with an escort when he was surprised at Toledo, and is now almost as helpless as herself; in her enfeebled brain the lineaments of the two brothers become mingled, and the gentle Fadique seems to live again in the gracious Enrique, whom all men love. What matter? She is doomed. Incapable of hate or love; no passion is left within her. Even the craving for liberty is gone. She feels she could not use it, were it hers; and thus she sits, day after day, on the summit of a castellated tower, under a low wall, hand in hand with Claire. That she has loved or been loved seems so impossible, a feeble smile rises on her lips as she thinks of it. That she has been born to pomp and greatness is equally incredible in her abject condition. To hold a flower in her hand, to scent the perfume of herbs borne by the breeze, to watch the flight of sea-gulls which skim across the plain, to note the accidents of the seasons, golden autumn breaking into grey winter, then passing to the glad garments of the spring, on the shadowy outlines of the mountains of La Mancha, is to her mind as a never-ending wonder that the world should thus go on. It is _she_ alone who is dead, while all nature lives triumphant! The entrance of the old crone who performs such menial offices as she requires is a boon as something human, yet even she scowls at her with envy because she is a queen. “What devil’s deed have you in your mind?” she mutters, as she sweeps the floor, casting malignant glances at Blanche, seated beside Claire. “Are you expecting a saviour, mistress? Ha! ha! None will come to Xeres. You do not answer? You can weep, therefore you can speak.” “We are French,” answers Claire, speaking for Blanche. “We mean you no offence by our silence. But, for the sake of mercy, tell us, good mother, is there really no means of escape from this prison?” “None,” answers the woman, pursing up her thin lips as if it gave her a certain satisfaction. “Think not of it. From hence you go to the gates of death. I can tell you that. Misfortune is the road to a better world. It comforts me to think you are as wretched as I am myself. Fare you well, ladies, till to-morrow. There is not a chamber in the castle nor a step on the stairs that is not slippery with human blood. They die, every soul of them, who come here.”