The scene opens with a soliloquy by the Lady Dedlock, in which she laments the fact that she cannot bear the memory of the events of the previous night. She reminds her sister that they were both important to her when she was a child, but now they are no longer. She begs her sister to come back to her. She tells her that the portrait of the prince is the only portrait of him in the palace, and that he is the one who hilna is infatuated with. She says that she will spend her entire life protecting her sister, but that she is also her greatest weakness