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.