If he is my servant, sir, replied she, blushing, he never had my permission to be so: and, indeed, no one else can boast of my having granted them such a liberty.
Do you know whose servant he is, then, madam? replied the gentleman, a little surprised at her answer, which he could not well understand.
You throw me into a great embarrassment, sir, resumed Arabella, blushing more than before: questionless, he appears to be mine; but, since, as I told you before, he never discovered himself to me, and I never permitted him to assume that title, his services, if ever I received any from him, were not at all considered by me as things for which I was obliged to him.
The gentleman, still more amazed at answers so little to the purpose, was going to desire her to explain herself upon this strange affair; when Edward, coming up close to Arabella, cried out in a transport, Oh! madam! thank God you are found.
Hold, impious man! said Arabella, and do not give thanks for that which, haply, may prove thy punishment. If I am found, thou wilt be no better for it: and, if thou continuest to persecute me, thou wilt probably meet with thy death, where thou thinkest thou hast found thy happiness.
The poor fellow, who understood not a word of this discourse, stared upon her like one that had lost his wits; when the protector of Arabella, approaching him, asked him, with a stern look, what he had to say to that lady, and why he presumed to follow her?
As the man was going to answer him, Mr. Glanville came galloping up; and Edward, seeing him, ran up to him, and informed him, that he had met with Lady Bella, and a gentleman, who seemed to have been overturned in a chaise, which he was endeavouring to refit; and that her ladyship was offended with him for coming up to her; and also, that the gentleman had used some threatening language to him upon that account.
Mr. Glanville, excessively surprised at what he heard, stopped; and, ordering a servant who came along with him to run back to the castle, and bring a chaise thither to carry Lady Bella home, he asked Edward several more questions relating to what she and the gentleman had said to him: and, notwithstanding his knowledge of her ridiculous humour, he could not help being alarmed by her behaviour, nor concluding that there was something very mysterious in the affair.
While he was thus conversing with Edward, Arabella, who had spied him almost as soon, was filled with apprehension to see him hold so quiet a parly with her ravisher: the more she reflected upon this accident, the more her suspicions increased; and, persuading herself at last, that Mr. Glanville was privy to his designs, this belief, however improbable, wrought so powerfully upon her imagination, that she could not restrain her tears.
Doubtless, said she, I am betrayed, and the perjured Glanville is no longer either my friend or lover: he is this moment concerting measures with my ravisher, how to deliver me into his power; and, like Philidaspes, is glad of an opportunity, by this treachery, to be rid of a woman whom his parents and hers had destined for his wife.