“Before, as the wife or the victim of the Right Honourable Lord Alphingham, you fly from her for ever, and thus reward her cares, her love, her prayers, wretched and deceiving girl,” sternly and slowly the Duchess said, as she rapidly yet with her usual majesty paced the room, and laid her hand heavily on Caroline’s shoulder, as she sat bowed down with shame before her.  “Deny it not; it was thus you would bring down shame on my home; thus create agony for your devoted parents; thus prove your gratitude, love, obedience, by wrenching every tie asunder.  Oh, shame, shame!  If this be the fruit of such tender cares, such careful training, oh, where shall we seek for honour and integrity—­in what heart find virtue?  And why not consummate your sin? why pause ere your noble and virtuous resolution was put in force? why hesitate in the accomplishment of your designs?  Why not fly with your honourable lover, and thus wring the fond hearts of your parents at once to the utmost?  Why retract now, when it will be only to delude again?  Miserable and deluded girl, what new whim has caused this sudden change?  Wherefore wait till it be too late to repent—­to persuade us that you are an unwilling abettor and assistant in this man’s schemes?  Go, fly with him; it were better to reconcile your indulgent mother to an eternal separation, than that she should take you once more to her heart, and be again deceived.  Go, your secret is safe.  How dare you speak of inflicting misery on your parents?  Must not hypocrisy lurk in every word, when wilfully, recklessly, you have already abused their confidence and insulted their love? much more you cannot do.”  She paused, as if in expectation of a reply, but none came.  Caroline’s breaking heart had lost that proud spirit which, a few days before, would have called a haughty answer from her lips.  She writhed beneath those stern unpitying accents, which perhaps in such a moment of remorseful agony might have been spared, but she replied not; and, after a brief silence, the Duchess again spoke.

“Caroline, answer me.  What has caused this sudden change in your intentions?  What has chanced between you and Lord Alphingham to demand this sudden longing for home?  What impulse bids you thus elude him?”

“The memory of my mother’s love,” and Caroline raised her head, and pushing back her disordered hair, gazed upon the face of the Duchess with an expression of suffering few could have looked upon unmoved.  “You are right, I have deceived my too indulgent parents, I have abused their confidence, insulted their love; but I cannot, oh, I cannot still those principles within me which they have implanted.  In my hours of maddening folly I remembered them not; I believed they had gone from me for ever, and I should be happy.  They have returned to torture me, to tell me that as the wife of Lord Alphingham, without the blessing of my parents, I shall be wretched.  I have brought down endless misery on myself—­that