The room had been carefully darkened to twilight, so that Catharine saw the apparently female figure stretched on the couch without the least suspicion.
"Is that the maiden ?" asked Rothsay, in a voice naturally sweet, and now carefully modulated to a whispering tone.

"Let her approach, Griselda, and kiss our hand." The supposed nurse led the trembling maiden forward to the side of the couch, and signed to her to kneel.

Catharine did so, and kissed with much devotion and simplicity the gloved hand which the counterfeit duchess extended to her.
"Be not afraid," said the same musical voice; "in me you only see a melancholy example of the vanity of human greatness; happy those, my child, whose rank places them beneath the storms of state." While he spoke, he put his arms around her neck and drew her towards him, as if to salute her in token of welcome.

But the kiss was bestowed with an earnestness which so much overacted the part of the fair patroness, that Catharine, concluding the Duchess had lost her senses, screamed aloud.
"Peace, fool! it is I--David of Rothsay." Catharine looked around her; the nurse was gone, and the Duke tearing off his veil, she saw herself in the power of a daring young libertine.
"Now be present with me, Heaven!" she said; "and Thou wilt, if I forsake not myself." As this resolution darted through her mind, she repressed her disposition to scream, and, as far as she might, strove to conceal her fear.
"The jest hath been played," she said, with as much firmness as she could assume; "may I entreat that your Highness will now unhand me ?" for he still kept hold of her arm.
"Nay, my pretty captive, struggle not--why should you fear ?" "I do not struggle, my lord.

As you are pleased to detain me, I will not, by striving, provoke you to use me ill, and give pain to yourself, when you have time to think." "Why, thou traitress, thou hast held me captive for months," said the Prince, "and wilt thou not let me hold thee for a moment ?" "This were gallantry, my lord, were it in the streets of Perth, where I might listen or escape as I listed; it is tyranny here." "And if I did let thee go, whither wouldst thou fly ?" said Rothsay.
"The bridges are up, the portcullis down, and the men who follow me are strangely deaf to a peevish maiden's squalls.