accents that
painfully betrayed the agitation within, implored her to procure her a
carriage and fleet horses, as circumstances had occurred which obliged
her instantly to return to town. She besought her neither to question
her nor to speak of her sudden resolution to any one, as the note she
would leave behind for her Grace would fully explain all. Allison
remained for some few minutes gazing on the agitated girl, in motionless
astonishment.

"Return to London at such a time of night, and alone," she rather
allowed to drop from her lips than said, after a long pause.

"Oh, would to heaven some one would go with me! but I know none whom I
can ask," Caroline replied, in a tone of anguish, and seizing Allison's
hand, again and again implored her assistance. Briefly she promised to
do all she could for her, and left her, not to do her bidding by seeking
some conveyance, but to report the strange request and still more
alarming manner of Caroline to her Grace; who, for some secret reason,
which her daughters and friends in vain endeavoured to solve, had at the
very last moment declared her intention of not accompanying them, and
wishing them, with the utmost kindness, a pleasant evening, commissioned
Lady Lucy and her eldest brother, who had lately joined them, to supply
her place in their own party, and tender her excuses to the noble master
of the _fete_. The simple truth was, that the penetration of the Duchess
had observed and detected from the very first the manoeuvres of Lord
Alphingham and Caroline.

The former, as may have already been discovered, was one of those
against whom her prejudice was very strong. With her own free will, Lord
Alphingham would never have visited at her house, although she was never
heard to breathe one word to his disadvantage; especially invited he
never was, and in heart she was much annoyed at her husband's marked
preference and encouragement of his society. She had observed her friend
Mrs. Hamilton's coldness towards him; and as much as she admired the
conduct of the mother, so she sometimes found herself mistrusting the
studied air and guarded reserve with which Caroline ever treated the
Viscount. The sudden change in Mr. Hamilton's manner had also struck
her, and therefore, when Alphingham joined her coterie, not once did she
ever fail in the jealous watchfulness with which she regarded him and
Caroline. Rendered suspicious by all that she had observed, Caroline's
determination no