This second loss, also, by carrying back her reflections to the first, brought to her mind several circumstances, which cast a new light upon that origin of the various misfortunes and adventures which had followed her arrival; and all her recollections, now she knew the rapacity and worthlessness of the pilot, pointed out to her that she had probably been robbed, at the moment when, impulsively, she was pouring forth, upon her knees, her thanks for her deliverance. Her work-bag, which, upon that occasion, she had deposited upon her seat, she remembered, though she had then attributed it to his vigilance and care, seeing in his hands, when she arose.
Arrived at the farm-house, they found themselves expected by the farmer and his wife, who paid the utmost respect to Sir Jaspar; but who saw, with an air of evidently suspicious surprize, the respect which he himself paid to Mrs Betty, the nurse-maid; whose beauty, with her rustic attire, and disordered hair, would have made them instantly conclude her to be a lost young creature, had not the decency of her look, the dignity of her manner, and the grief visible in her countenance, spoken irresistibly in favour of her innocence. They spoke not, however, in favour of that of Sir Jaspar, whose old character of gallantry was well known to them; and induced their belief, that he was inveigling this young woman from her friends, for her moral destruction. They accommodated her, nevertheless, for the night; but, whatever might be their pity, determined, should the Baronet visit her the next day, to invent some other occupation for their spare bedroom.
Unenviable was that night, as passed by their lodger, however acceptable to her was any asylum. She spent it in continual alarm; now shaking with the terrour of pursuit; now affrighted with the prospect of being pennyless; now shocked to find herself cast completely into the power of a man, who, however aged, was her professed admirer; and now distracted by varying resolutions upon the measures which she ought immediately to take. And when, for a few minutes, her eyes, from extreme fatigue, insensibly closed, her dreams, short and horrible, renewed the dreadful event of the preceding day; again she saw herself pursued; again felt herself seized; and she blessed the piercing shrieks with which she awoke, though they brought to her but the transient relief that she was safe for the passing moment.