After the effort of giving and receiving the entertainment which Lady Pelham constantly offered, and as constantly exacted in return, Laura experienced a sensation of recovered freedom when the arrival of a visitor permitted her to escape to her own apartment. She saw nobody but her aunt, and never went abroad except to church. Thus, during a fortnight which she had passed in Grosvenor Street she had heard nothing of Hargrave. She was anxious to know whether he visited Lady Pelham; for, with rustic ignorance, she imagined that all people of condition who resided in the same town must be known to each other; but she had not courage to ask, and searched in vain for his name among the cards that crowded the table in the lobby. Though she was conscious of some curiosity to know how he employed the hours which her absence left vacant, she did not own to herself that she was at all concerned in a resolution which she took, to inquire in person whether any letters had been left for her with Mrs Stubbs. She did not choose to commit the inquiry to a servant, because she would not condescend to enjoin her messenger to secrecy as to the place of her abode; and she continued resolved to give her lover no clue to discover it.
Accordingly, she early one morning set out in a hackney-coach, which she took the precaution to leave at some distance from her old lodgings, ordering it to wait her return. Fanny was delighted to see her, and charmed with the improvement of her dress, and the returning healthfulness of her appearance; but the landlady eyed her askance, and surlily answered to her inquiry for her letters, that she would bring the only one she had got; muttering, as she went to fetch it, something of which the words 'secret doings' were all that reached Laura's ear. 'There, Miss,' said the ungracious Mrs Stubbs, 'there's your letter, and there's the queer scrawl it came wrapped up in.' 'Mr De Courcy's hand,' cried Laura surprised, but thinking, from its size, that some time would be required to read it, she deferred breaking the seal till she should return to her carriage. 'I suppose you're mistaken, Miss,' said Mrs Stubbs; 'Mr De Courcy was here twice the day it came, and he never said a word of it.'