“Good news for you all,” exclaimed the Duke of Rothbury, entering directly after; “we are to have another guest to-day, to keep us all alive.”

“Who—­who?” was reiterated by many voices, with somewhat of the noisy mirth of children.

“No less a person than Viscount Alphingham.”  An exclamation of pleasure passed through the giddy crowd, but there was an expression in the countenance of the Duchess, who had also entered from a drive, which, to Caroline’s quickly awakened fancy, appeared contrary to the general emotion.  “He is engaged as Sir Walter Courtenay’s guest, so I cannot claim him as mine,” the Duke continued; “but that does not much signify.  Sir Walter is here every day, and Alphingham will of course accompany him.  He is the best fellow I know.”

“And this is the man papa, for no reason whatever, save from Percy’s ill-natured opinion, has desired me to slight, to behave in a manner that, contrasted with former notice, must be madness itself; cruelty to him, after what has passed between us, and misery to me.  Surely, in such a case as this I am not compelled to obey.  When the general voice proclaims him other than they believe, am I to regard what is in itself a mystery?  If Percy had good reasons for writing against him to papa, for I am sure he must have done so, why did he not explain them, instead of treating me thus like a child, and standing forward as his accuser, when the whole world extols him?  Why are the dearest wishes of my heart to be destroyed merely by caprice?  Percy ever tried, even in childhood, to bid me to look up to him, and acknowledge his power, and thus he would prove it; but he will find himself mistaken.  When papa permits his judgment to be blinded by the insinuations of a mere boy, I no longer consider myself bound to obey him.”

Such was the tenor of Caroline’s thoughts when alone, in the short interval, ere she descended to dinner—­there was no ray of happiness; her heart had that day received a wound, nor could she derive comfort even from the knowledge that Lord Alphingham was expected.  She would not permit herself to think on Lord Henry’s conversation.  What was it to her if St. Eval married Louisa Manvers? then studiously she thought only on the Viscount, and the situation with regard to him in which she was placed, till her head ached with the intensity of its reflections.

On entering the drawing-room she found, as she had anticipated, Lord Alphingham the centre of a brilliant coterie, and for the space of a minute her heart throbbed and her cheek flushed.  He bowed respectfully as she appeared, but with distant courtesy; yet she fancied the flow of his eloquence was for a moment arrested, and his glance, subdued yet so mournfully beseeching, spoke volumes.  Neither at dinner nor during the whole of that evening did he pay her more than ordinary attention; scarcely that.  But those silent signals of intelligence had even greater power than words; for they nattered her self-love, by clearly