and in 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 not 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.