succeed, you would but break every bond between me and life, between
yourself and honour. I have been trained fraudulently here, by what
decoys I know not; but were I to go dishonoured hence, it would be to
denounce the destroyer of my happiness to every quarter of Europe.
I would take the palmer's staff in my hand, and wherever chivalry is
honoured, or the word Scotland has been heard, I would proclaim the heir
of a hundred kings, the son of the godly Robert Stuart, the heir of
the heroic Bruce, a truthless, faithless man, unworthy of the crown he
expects and of the spurs he wears. Every lady in wide Europe would hold
your name too foul for her lips; every worthy knight would hold you
a baffled, forsworn caitiff, false to the first vow of arms, the
protection of woman and the defence of the feeble."

Rothsay resumed his seat, and looked at her with a countenance in which
resentment was mingled with admiration. "You forget to whom you speak,
maiden. Know, the distinction I have offered you is one for which
hundreds whose trains you are born to bear would feel gratitude."

"Once more, my lord," resumed Catharine, "keep these favours for those
by whom they are prized; or rather reserve your time and your health
for other and nobler pursuits--for the defence of your country and
the happiness of your subjects. Alas, my lord, how willingly would an
exulting people receive you for their chief! How gladly would they close
around you, did you show desire to head them against the oppression of
the mighty, the violence of the lawless, the seduction of the vicious,
and the tyranny of the hypocrite!"

The Duke of Rothsay, whose virtuous feelings were as easily excited
as they were evanescent, was affected by the enthusiasm with which she
spoke. "Forgive me if I have alarmed you, maiden," he said "thou art
too noble minded to be the toy of passing pleasure, for which my mistake
destined thee; and I, even were thy birth worthy of thy noble spirit and
transcendent beauty, have no heart to give thee; for by the homage of
the heart only should such as thou be wooed. But my hopes have been
blighted, Catharine: the only woman I ever loved has been torn from me
in the very wantonness of policy, and a wife imposed on me whom I must
ever detest, even had she the loveliness and softness which alone can
render a woman amiable in my eyes. My health is fading even in early
youth; and all that is left for me is to snatch such flowers as the
s