What right had her mother to treat her thus?
Why must her every action be controlled, her very friendship disapproved of?
She felt she was the injured one, and therefore allowed herself no thought for her whom she in truth had injured.

For the same reason she clung yet closer to Annie; in her alone, in her present state of mind, she found full sympathy, and yet even with her she was not happy; there was a strange indefinable sensation in her heart that even to her friend she could not express.
There was a void within, a deep yearning void, which tortured her in her solitary moments, which even the society of Lord Alphingham could not wholly remove.

In solitude she blindly taught herself to believe that void must be for him.

How far she erred a future page must tell.
Her conduct in society meanwhile, since the departure of St.Eval, had been guarded and reserved, and her parents, fondly trusting their displeasure had been of service, relaxed after the first fortnight in their coldness and mistrustful manner towards her.

Mrs.Hamilton had hoped the pale cheek and dim eye proceeded from remorse; and had not Caroline been so pointedly distant and reserved when in her society, she would have lavished on her all the tenderness of former years.
When that mysterious letter from Percy came, although it caused his parents considerable anxiety, yet it never once occurred that any coldness on their part towards Lord Alphingham could occasion Caroline any pain.