It was with no little astonishment, Lady Glenfeld, amongst the foremost guests at her dinner party, saw Mrs. Marchmont enter, arm in arm with one of the Le Stranges. She was as gaily dressed, and her mind seemed to be as much at ease as usual. The only perceptible difference was an unwonted degree of paleness, the inevitable result of the alarm she had undergone. ‘What can be the meaning,’ thought Bertha, ‘of her going / about with so unconcerned an appearance whilst such a sword is hanging over her head? He comes not, I perceive, but that she should have the resolution to do so, exceeds – utterly exceeds, my powers of comprehension!’

Mrs. Marchmont, however, unsuspicious of the strictures she was exciting, after having repeated to Lord Glenfeld the apology sent by her brother, proceeded to give a full detail of the events of the morning. She told of her having gone to Monsieur Lefevre for her eighth sitting; of the musicians who had drawn Agnes to the window; of the unspeakable consternation she had been thrown into when she first missed her; of the violent nervous attack she had suffered; and of the pitiable state in which she had been conveyed home.

‘And what relieved you, Madam, from your alarm?’ gravely enquired Lord Glenfeld.

‘Why, a note sent by Lucy to Mr. Wharton, informing him she had been carried off, almost by compulsion, to Neuilly by Madame / Monbar, and her freakish daughters, to see a play represented this evening by some amateurs, at the house of one of their neighbours.