'Oh! where is your master?' eagerly inquired Adeline.
'My master has sent you this, miss,' replied Arthur, holding out a letter, which Adeline joyfully received; and, spite of her intended obedience to her mother's will, Glenmurray himself could not have met with a more favourable reception, for the moment was a most propitious one to his love: nor, as it happened, was Glenmurray too far off to profit by it. On his way from Bath he went a few miles out of his road, in order, as he said, and perhaps as he thought, to pay a visit to an old servant of his mother's, who was married to a respectable farmer; but, fortunately, the farm commanded a view of the Pavilion, and Glenmurray could from his window gaze on the house that contained the woman of his affections.
But to return to Adeline, who, while hastily tearing open the letter, asked Arthur where his master was, and heard with indescribable emotion that he was in the neighbourhood.
'Here! so providentially!' she exclaimed, and proceeded to read the letter; but her emotion forbade her to read it entirely. She only saw that it contained banknotes; that Glenmurray was going abroad for his health; and, in case he should die there, had sent her the money which he had meant to leave her in his will,—lest she should be, in the meanwhile, any way dependent on Sir Patrick.
Numberless conflicting emotions took possession of Adeline's heart while the new proof of her lover's attentive tenderness met her view: and, as she contrasted his generous and delicate attachment with the licentious passion of her mother's libertine husband, a burst of uncontrollable affection for Glenmurray agitated her bosom; and, rendered superstitious by her fears, she looked on him as sent by Providence to save her from the dangers of her home.
'This is the second time,' cried she, 'that Glenmurray, as my guardian angel, has appeared at the moment when I was exposed to danger from the same guilty quarter! Ah! surely there is more than accident in this! and he is ordained to be my guide and my protector!'
When once a woman has associated with an amiable man the idea of protection, he can never again be indifferent to her: and when the protector happens to be the chosen object of her love, his power becomes fixed on a basis never to be shaken.
'It is enough,' said Adeline in a faltering voice, pressing the letter to her lips, and bursting into tears of grateful tenderness as she spoke: 'Lead me to your master directly.'
'Bless my heart! will you see him then, miss?' cried Arthur.
'See him?' replied Adeline—'see the only friend I now can boast?—But let us be gone this moment, lest I should be seen and pursued.'