"I will not admit that, Sire, for it would not be true."
"Your daughter has given her evidence since," said the King, holding up the folded note, and fixing his eyes at last on his victim's face. If it were possible, Mendoza turned more ashy pale than before, and he started perceptibly at the King's words.
"I shall never believe that!" he cried in a voice which nevertheless betrayed his terror for his child.
"A few moments before this note was written," said Philip calmly, "your daughter entered the throne room, and addressed the court, standing upon the steps of the throne--a very improper proceeding and one which Ruy Gomez should not have allowed. Your daughter Dolores--is that the girl's name? Yes. Your daughter Dolores, amidst the most profound silence, confessed that she--it is so monstrous that I can hardly bring myself to say it--that she had yielded to the importunities of his late Highness, that she was with him in his room a long time this evening, and that, in fact, she was actually in his bedchamber when he was murdered."
"It is a lie!" cried Mendoza vehemently. "It is an abominable lie--she was not in the room!"
"She has said that she was," answered Philip. "You can hardly suppose a girl capable of inventing such damning evidence against herself, even for the sake of saving her own father. She added that his Highness was not killed by you. But that is puerile. She evidently saw you do it, and has boldly confessed that she was in the room--hidden somewhere, perhaps, since you absolutely refuse to admit that you saw her there. It is quite clear that you found the two together and that you killed his Highness before your daughter's eyes. Why not admit that, Mendoza? It makes you seem a little less cold-blooded. The provocation was great--"
"She was not there," protested Mendoza, interrupting the King, for he hardly knew what he was doing.
"She was there, since she confesses to have been in the room. I do not tolerate interruption when I am speaking. She was there, and her evidence will be considered. Even if you did not see her, how can you be sure that your daughter was not there? Did you search the room? Did you look behind the curtains?"
"I did not." The stern old man seemed to shrink bodily under the frightful humiliation to which he was subjected.
"Very well, then you cannot swear that she was not in the room. But you did not see her there. Then I am sorry to say that there can have been no extenuating circumstances. You entered his Highness's bedchamber, you did not even speak to him, you drew your sword and you killed him. All this shows that you went there fully determined to commit the crime. But with regard to its motive, this strange confession of your daughter's makes that quite clear. She had been extremely imprudent with Don John, you were aware of the fact, and you revenged yourself in the most brutal way. Such vengeance never can produce any but the most fatal results. You yourself must die, in the first place, a degrading and painful death on the scaffold, and you die leaving behind you a ruined girl, who must bury herself in a convent and never be seen by her worldly equals again. And besides that, you have deprived your King of a beloved brother, and Spain of her most brilliant general. Could anything be worse?"