t to join the party that evening had increased her
uneasiness to a degree that almost amounted to alarm, and that very
instant her resolution was fixed to remain at Airslie. She desired
Allison not to mention her intention of remaining to Miss Hamilton, but
to inform her minutely of all that passed during the evening; and her
astonishment was almost as great as her domestic's had been when
Caroline's desire was related to her.

It wanted but one half hour to the time appointed by the Viscount, and
Caroline still sat in a state of anxiety and suspense, which tortured
her almost to frenzy. Unable to bear it longer, her hand was on the bell
once more to summon Allison, when the lock of the door turned, and
starting forwards, the words, "Is all ready--have you succeeded?" were
arrested on her lips by the appearance of the Duchess herself, who,
closing the door, stood gazing on the terrified girl with a glance of
severity and command few could have met unmoved. Scarcely conscious of
what she did, Caroline started back, and, sinking on a stool at the
farthest end of the room, covered her face with her hands.

"May I know with what intent Miss Hamilton is about to withdraw herself
from my roof and my protection?" she demanded, in those brief yet
searching tones she ever used when displeased. "What reason she can
allege for this unceremonious departure from a house where she has ever
been regarded as one of its most favoured inmates? Your mother trusted
you to my care, and on your duty to her I demand an answer." She
continued, after a brief pause, in which Caroline neither moved nor
spoke, "Where would you go at this unseasonable hour?"

"Home to my mother," murmured the unhappy girl, in a voice almost
inarticulate.

"Home!" repeated her Grace, in a bitterly satirical tone. "Strange, that
you should thus suddenly desire to return. Were you not the child of
those to whom equivocation is unknown, I might well doubt that
tale;--home, and wherefore?"

"To save myself from the effects of my own sinful folly--my own
infatuated madness," replied Caroline, summoning with a strong effort
all the energy of her character, and with a vehemence that flushed her
pallid cheek with crimson. "In this at least I am sincere, though in all
else I deserve no longer to be regarded as the child of such
noble-minded beings as are my parents. Spurn me from you as you will,
this is no moment for equivocation and delay. I have deceived your
Grace.