But for Dolores, the charms of the ridotto had vanished now; and in sore perturbation of spirit and anxiety of heart, she bade her host and hostess a hurried farewell, summoned her sedan, and took her departure homeward.
The lights, the music—the music of Lulli; the minuet de la cour, and the gaiety of the ridotto, faded away behind her as the heiress took the somewhat lonely road that led to the villa of her mother.
She was escorted to her sedan by an officer of the Brigade, a friend of Lewie's, who, as he closed the roof of it over her, thought that she looked like—as he vowed to some others—'a lovely queen in wax-work done up in a glass-case.'
CHAPTER IX.
THE ABDUCTORS.
What was this mystery concerning the movements and intentions of Lewie Baronald, on which the Earl of Drumlanrig had so abruptly but unconsciously thrown a light?
When last they met and parted, Lewie had given no hint of any desire for foreign service, and certainly, with the relations then existing between himself and her, it was the last thing to be thought of.
'Oh,' thought Dolores, 'that I were at home to consult mamma on this amazing subject!'
Her bearers seemed to crawl; she narrowly opened and shut her fan again and again in her impatience, and stamped her little foot on the floor of the sedan in her irritation and anxiety.
Yes! that horrid General—that odious uncle, the eccentric woman-hater, was no doubt at the bottom of it, and had thus resolved to separate Lewie from her, and hot tears started to her eyes at the thought.