The hours wore on; the noble guests could speak of nothing but the anticipated fete and its attendant pleasures, while they whiled away the intervening hours in the library, the music-room, the garden, wherever their taste dictated, for freedom was ever the password of Airslie; but Caroline joined them not.  It was the second day that she had not seen the Viscount; for, fearing to attract notice, he had never made his visits unusually frequent, and well versed in intrigue, he had carried on his intercourse with Caroline in impenetrable secrecy.  More than once in those lonely hours did she feel as if her brain reeled, and become confused, for she could not banish thought.  She had that morning received letters from home, and in her present mood each line breathed affection, which her now awakened conscience told her was undeserved.  Nature and reason had resumed their sway, as if to add their tortures to the anguish of those hours.  The misery which had been her portion, since her acceptance of Lord Alphingham, had slowly but surely drawn the blinding film from her eyes.  The light of reason had broke upon them with a lustre that would no more be darkened.  At the same moment that she knew she did not love Lord Alphingham, her conduct to her parents, to St. Eval, appeared in their true colours.  Yes! this was no fancy, she had been the victim of infatuation, of excitement; but clearer and clearer dawned the truth.  She was sacrificing herself to one whom she did not love, whom she had never loved, with whom her life would be a dreary waste; and for this was she about to break the ties of nature, fly from her parents, perhaps draw down upon her head their curse, or, what she now felt would be worse, much worse, wring that mother’s heart with anguish, whose conduct, now that reason had resumed her throne, she was convinced had been ever guided by the dictates of affection.  She recalled with vivid clearness her every interview with Annie, and she saw with bitter self-reproach her own blindness and folly, in thus sacrificing her own judgment to false reasoning, in withdrawing her confidence and affection from the mother who had never once deceived her, to bestow them on one who had played upon her foolish weakness, heightened her scarcely-dawning fancy till it became infatuation, and finally recommended that plan of conduct from which Caroline’s whole soul revolted.  Why had she done this?  Caroline felt, to bring down shame upon her head and suffering on her mother.  Her parents’ conduct changed towards her—­oh! had not hers changed to them? had she not acted from the first of Annie’s arrival in London as if under the influence of some spell? and now that it was rudely broken, recollections of the past mingled with and heightened her present sufferings.  Her childhood, her early youth rushed like a torrent on her mind; faulty as they had been, they were innocent and pure compared with her present self.  Then she had been ever actuated by truth, candour, respectful