Don Antonio now rode forward to prepare the Lady Cornelia, lest the sudden appearance of her brother and the duke might cause too violent a revulsion; but not finding her as he expected, and the pages being unable to give him any intelligence respecting her, he suddenly found himself the saddest and most embarrassed man in the world.  Learning that the gouvernante had departed, he was not long in conjecturing that the lady had disappeared by her means.  The pages informed him that the housekeeper had gone on the same day with himself and Don Juan, but as to that Lady Cornelia, respecting whom he inquired, they had never seen her.  Don Antonio was almost out of his senses at this unexpected occurrence, which, he feared, must make the duke consider himself and Don Juan to be mere liars and boasters.  He was plunged in these sad thoughts when Alfonso entered with Lorenzo and Don Juan, who had spurred on before the attendants by retired and unfrequented streets.  They found Don Antonio seated with his head on his hand, and as pale as a man who has been long dead, and when Don Juan inquired what ailed him, and where was the Lady Cornelia, he replied, “Rather ask me what do I not ail, since the Lady Cornelia is not to be found.  She quitted the house, on the same day as ourselves, with the gouvernante we left to keep her company.”

This sad news seemed as though it would deprive the duke of life, and Lorenzo of his senses.  The whole party remained in the utmost consternation and dismay; when one of the pages said to Don Antonio in a whisper, “Signor, Santisteban, Signor Don Juan’s page, has had locked up in his chamber, from the day when your worships left, a very pretty woman, whose name is certainly Cornelia, for I have heard him call her so.”  Plunged into a new embarrassment, Don Antonio would rather not have found the lady at all—­for he could not but suppose it was she whom the page had shut up in his room—­than have discovered her in such a place.  Nevertheless, without saying a word, he ascended to the page’s chamber, but found the door fast, for the young man had gone out, and taken away the key.  Don Antonio therefore put his lips to the keyhole, and said in a low voice, “Open the door, Signora Cornelia, and come down to receive your brother, and the duke, your husband, who are waiting to take you hence.”

A voice from within replied, “Are you making fun of me?  It is certain that I am neither so ugly nor so old but that dukes and counts may very well be looking for me:  but this comes of condescending to visit pages.”  These words quite satisfied Don Antonio that it was not the Lady Cornelia who had replied.

At that moment Santisteban returned and went up to his chamber, where he found Don Antonio, who had just commanded that all the keys of the house should be brought, to see if any one of them would open the door.  The page fell on his knees, and held up the key, exclaiming, “Have mercy on me, your worship:  your absence, or rather my own villainy, made me bring this woman to my room; but I entreat your grace, Don Antonio, as you would have good news from Spain, that you suffer the fault I have committed to remain unknown to my master, Don Juan, if he be not yet informed of it; I will turn her out this instant.”