the carriage.

"Poor, poor mamma! How pale and ill she was last night! Oh, papa, do
kiss her good-bye for me just once again, when you go back."

Lord Hope turned a smiling look upon the girl, and she added, half in
excuse:

"It breaks my heart to leave her so."

Lord Hope did not answer, but folded a cloak around his daughter, helped
her into the carriage, and took a seat himself.

Margaret was already seated by the coachman.

"I understand well enough that I am not to travel with my young lady on
her journey," she said; "but, so far as her way lies toward London, I am
going. My sister wants me there, and I do just as lief be in a tomb as
stay at Oakhurst when Lady Clara is away. So, as she is willing, I shall
just leave her at the junction, and go up to London. That I can do in
spite of the crabbed old thing at Houghton, who wants her at first all
to herself."

This was said in confidence to the coachman, who muttered something
under his breath about feeling uncommonly lonesome when Mistress
Margaret was away from Oakhurst.

Directly after this the carriage drew up at the station, where a
grim-looking woman of fifty stood ready to receive the young lady from
the hands of her father.

It was not often that Lord Hope was known to exhibit any violent
emotion; but Clara felt that he gave way a little when she threw her
arms around his neck in parting--and Badger, after he opened the gate to
let his master pass through, observed to Jules that something out of the
common must be going on up yonder, for all night people had been going
in and out like ghosts, and the master seemed like another man.

CHAPTER XIX.

AFTER THE FAILURE.

When Caroline reached home, after that involuntary retreat from the
theatre, she went to her own room with Eliza, and falling upon the bed,
lay perfectly still, so exhausted and crushed, that she scarcely
breathed. She had disgraced herself, and she had seen _him_.

Alas, alas! he had witnessed her defeat, her bitter humiliation!

Why had she not told him before, that her mother was an actress, a
singer, of whose reputation he had heard; that her own destiny must be
guided by this woman, and could hardly have a higher aim than she had
already reached. He would think that she had deceived him, and she had,
but with no premeditation. She had honestly intended to tell him
everything, but the suddenness of their departure from Italy had
rendered all explanation impossible. W