"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!"
"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 matters not; but oh, I will not cause them further suffering. I will no longer wring the heart of my gentle mother, who has so often prayed for her erring child. Too late, perhaps, I have determined, but the wife of Lord Alphingham I will never be; but his character is still dear to me, and I entreat your Grace not to withdraw your favour from him. He alone is not to blame, I also am culpable, for I acknowledge the encouragement I have given him. My character for integrity is gone, but his is still unstained."
"Fear not for him, my favour he has never had; but my honour is too dear to me for such an affair as this to pass my lips. Let him continue the courted, the spoiled, the flattered child of fashion he has ever been. I regard him not. Let him run his course rejoicing, it matters not to me." She rang the bell as she spoke, and slowly and silently paced the room till Allison obeyed the summons. "Desire James to put four swift horses to the chariot. Important business calls me instantly to London; bid him use dispatch, every moment is precious."
Allison departed, and the Duchess continued pacing the apartment till she returned, announcing the carriage as ready. A very few minutes sufficed for their personal preparations, for the Duchess to give peremptory orders to her trusty Allison to keep her departure a profound secret, as she should return before her guests were stirring the next morning, and herself account for Miss Hamilton's sudden return home. Few words were sufficient for Allison, who was in all respects well fitted for the situation she held near a person of the Duchess of Rothbury's character; and the carriage rolled rapidly from Airslie.
Not another word passed between the travelling companions. In feverish agitation on the part of Caroline, in cold, unbending sternness on that of the Duchess, their journey passed. To the imagination of the former, the roll of the carriage-wheels was the sound of pursuing horses; in every turn of the road her fevered fancy beheld the figure of Lord Alphingham: at one time glaring on her in reproachful bitterness, at another, in mockery, derision, satire; and when she closed her eyes, those visions still tormented, nor did they depart till she felt her mother's arm around her, her gentle voice pronounce her name.