But upon this principle how can you find any reason for your late fright?
Has it ever been known that a lady of your rank was attacked with such intentions, in a place so public, without any preparations made by the violator for defence or escape?
Can it be imagined that any man would so rashly expose himself to infamy by failure, and to the gibbet by success?
Does there in the records of the world appear a single instance of such hopeless villainy?
It is now time, sir, said Arabella, to answer your questions, before they are too many to be remembered.
The dignity of my birth can very little defend me against an insult to which the heiresses of great and powerful empires, the daughters of valiant princes, and the wives of renowned monarchs, have been a thousand times exposed.
The danger which you think so great, would hardly repel a determined mind; for in effect, who would have attempted my rescue, seeing that no knight or valiant cavalier was within view?
What then should have hindered him from placing me in a chariot? Driving it into the pathless desert? And immuring me in a castle, among woods and mountains? Or hiding me perhaps in the caverns of a rock? Or confining me in some island of an immense lake?
From all this, madam, interrupted the clergyman, he is hindered by impossibility.
He cannot carry you to any of these dreadful places, because there is no such castle, desert, cavern, or lake.