As soon as the last carriage had rolled from the door she summoned Allison, the Duchess's own maid, 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.