ey might take her as much as possible by surprise while they
inquired into the facts attending Louise's disappearance.

"Where is your companion, young woman?" said Ramorny, in a tone of
austere gravity.

"I have no companion here," answered Catharine.

"Trifle not," replied the knight; "I mean the glee maiden, who lately
dwelt in this chamber with you."

"She is gone, they tell me," said Catharine--"gone about an hour since."

"And whither?" said Dwining.

"How," answered Catharine, "should I know which way a professed wanderer
may choose to travel? She was tired no doubt of a solitary life, so
different from the scenes of feasting and dancing which her trade leads
her to frequent. She is gone, and the only wonder is that she should
have stayed so long."

"This, then," said Ramorny, "is all you have to tell us?"

"All that I have to tell you, Sir John," answered Catharine, firmly;
"and if the Prince himself inquire, I can tell him no more."

"There is little danger of his again doing you the honour to speak to
you in person," said Ramorny, "even if Scotland should escape being
rendered miserable by the sad event of his decease."

"Is the Duke of Rothsay so very ill?" asked Catharine.

"No help, save in Heaven," answered Ramorny, looking upward.

"Then may there yet be help there," said Catharine, "if human aid prove
unavailing!"

"Amen!" said Ramorny, with the most determined gravity; while Dwining
adopted a face fit to echo the feeling, though it seemed to cost him
a painful struggle to suppress his sneering yet soft laugh of triumph,
which was peculiarly excited by anything having a religious tendency.

"And it is men--earthly men, and not incarnate devils, who thus appeal
to Heaven, while they are devouring by inches the life blood of their
hapless master!" muttered Catharine, as her two baffled inquisitors left
the apartment. "Why sleeps the thunder? But it will roll ere long, and
oh! may it be to preserve as well as to punish!"

The hour of dinner alone afforded a space when, all in the castle being
occupied with that meal, Catharine thought she had the best opportunity
of venturing to the breach in the wall, with the least chance of being
observed. In waiting for the hour, she observed some stir in the castle,
which had been silent as the grave ever since the seclusion of the Duke
of Rothsay. The portcullis was lowered and raised, and the creaking of
the machinery was intermingled with the tramp