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.  I was about to bring down shame upon your house, to cause your indignant displeasure, my parents anguish, myself but endless remorseful misery.  To save all this, I would return home to implore the forgiveness, the protection of my parents; they alone can guard me from myself.  Oh, if you ever loved my mother,” she continued, starting up with agony, as the hour of nine chimed on her ear, “send some one with me, and let me go home.  Half an hour more,” and her voice grew almost inarticulate with suppressed emotion, “and it may be too late.  Mother, mother, if I could but see you once again!”