Poor little Alice! she had acted very wrongly; she had been self-willed, petulant, unjust, and disobedient to her husband; but if suffering could atone for sin, the bitterness of that moment might have expiated graver offences than those of which she had been guilty. Her first idea was to get away from the spot: lost as he was to her, Harry should never say she was a spy upon his actions. She turned to communicate her wish to her companion, and saw his eyes fixed on her face with a peculiar intelligence which she had never observed before, and in an instant the thought flashed across her that she had been brought there by design; and, without allowing time for reflection as to the advisability of making such an accusation, she exclaimed-- “You knew they were there, and brought me on purpose to see them, and so to destroy the happiness of my future life! what have I ever done to you to deserve this at your hands!” Utterly taken aback by this direct and unexpected attack, Lord Alfred coloured up, stammered something unintelligible, and at last attempted to screen himself behind the equivocation that he did not know Mr. Coverdale was in the boudoir. “If you did not know it, you suspected it,” was the reply; “your features are more honest than your words, my lord, and betray you.” Greatly confounded at this most unexpected result of his scheme, Lord Alfred vowed, and protested, and attempted to clear and defend himself, but in vain. The shock Alice had received had couched her mental vision, and, turning a deaf ear to his excuses, she sternly desired him to take her back to Mrs. Crane immediately; and then preserved an offended silence, so that his lordship was glad to take her at her word, and lead her back to the drawing-room, in which the Crane party had ensconced themselves. “Kate, let us get home--I am wearied to death; somebody said the carriage was waiting.” The words were commonplace enough, but something in the tone in which they were uttered caused Mrs. Crane to regard her cousin attentively, and her quick eye soon discerned that there was something amiss. “Alice, is anything wrong, dear? you are not ill?” “Yes! no! my head aches--only let us get away!” was the reply. “But some one told me that Mr. Coverdale had arrived; where is he?--you will wait for him?” returned Kate, alarmed and surprised at Alice’s unwonted agitation. “He will come when he likes; he--has found some friends of his, I believe,” murmured Alice. “_Only_ let us get away!” she added, in so imploring a tone that Kate, convinced some _contre-temps_ had occurred, dispatched Mr. Crane in search of Miss Crofton, and, taking leave of Lady Tattersall Trottemout (who thinking they had resolved to spend the night there, naturally deplored their “running away so early”), repaired to the cloakroom. Here the others, including Harry Coverdale, joined them, and in another quarter of an hour they were safely housed in Park Lane.