"Well, there can be no great harm in waiting that length of time," said Lady Hastings. "I do not mind promising that; but of course you will let me know within four and twenty hours." "I will," replied Mrs. Hazleton firmly; "earlier if it be possible; but the fact is, I have some business to settle to-morrow of great importance. My lawyer, Mr. Shanks--whom I believe to be a great rogue--persuaded me to lend some money upon security which he pronounced himself to be good. I knew not what it was for; as we women of course can be no judges of such things; but I have just discovered that it was to pay off some debts of this young man who calls himself Sir John Hastings. Now I don't know whether the papers have been signed, or any thing about it; and I hear that the young man himself is absent, no one knows where. It makes me very uneasy; and I have sent for Shanks to come to me to-morrow morning. It may therefore be the middle of the day before I can get here; but I will not delay a moment, you may be perfectly sure." She had risen as she spoke, and after pressing the hand of Lady Hastings tenderly in her own, she glided calmly out of the room with her usual graceful movement, and entering her carriage with a face as serene as a summer sky, ordered the coachman to drive home in a voice that wavered not in its lightest tone. CHAPTER XLIII. Mrs. Hazelton entered the carriage, I have said, at the end of the last chapter, without the slightest appearance of agitation or excitement. Although now and then a flush, and now and then a paleness, had spread over her face during the conversation with Lady Hastings, though her eye had emitted an occasional flash, and at other times had seemed fixed and meaningless, such indications of internal warfare were all banished when she left the room, the fair smooth cheek had its natural color, the eye was as tranquil as that of indifferent old age. The coachman cracked his long whip, before four magnificent large horses heaved the ponderous vehicle from its resting place, and Mrs. Hazleton sank back in the carriage and gave herself up to thought--but not to thought only. Then all the smothered agitation; then all the strong contending passions broke forth in fierce and fiery warfare. It is impossible to disentangle them and lay them out, as on a map, before the reader's mind. It is impossible to say which at first predominated, rage, or fear, or disappointment, or the thirst of vengeance. One passion it is true--the one which might be called the master passion of her nature--soon soared towering above the rest, like one of those mighty spirits which rise to the dizzy and dangerous pinnacle of power in the midst of the turbulence and tempest which accompany great social earthquakes. But at first all was confusion.