produced from her confinement, and the
vivacity of her resentment under ill usage, were, by the address of
Anthony, and the prepossession of his domestics, perverted into the
effects of insanity; and the same interpretation was strained upon her
most indifferent words and actions.

The tidings of Miss Darnel's disorder was carefully circulated in
whispers, and soon reached the ears of Mr. Sycamore, who was not at all
pleased with the information. From his knowledge of Anthony's
disposition, he suspected the truth of the report; and, unwilling to see
such a prize ravished as it were from his grasp, he, with the advice and
assistance of his myrmidons, resolved to set the captive at liberty, in
full hope of turning the adventure to his own advantage; for he argued in
this manner:--"If she is in fact compos mentis, her gratitude will
operate in my behalf, and even prudence will advise her to embrace the
proffered asylum from the villany of her uncle. If she is really
disordered, it will be no great difficulty to deceive her into marriage,
and then I become her trustee of course."

The plan was well conceived, but Sycamore had not discretion enough to
keep his own counsel. From weakness and vanity, he blabbed the design,
which in a little time was communicated to Anthony Darnel, and he took
his precautions accordingly. Being infirm in his own person, and
consequently unfit for opposing the violence of some desperadoes, whom he
knew to be the satellites of Sycamore, he prepared a private retreat for
his ward at the house of an old gentleman, the companion of his youth,
whom he had imposed upon with the fiction of her being disordered in her
understanding, and amused with a story of a dangerous design upon her
person. Thus cautioned and instructed, the gentleman had gone with his
own coach and servants to receive Aurelia and her governante at a third
house, to which she had been privately removed from her uncle's
habitation; and in this journey it was that she had been so accidentally
protected from the violence of the robbers by the interposition and
prowess of our adventurer.

As he did not wear his helmet in that exploit, she recognised his
features as he passed the coach, and, struck with the apparition,
shrieked aloud. She had been assured by her guardian that his design was
to convey her to her own house; but perceiving in the sequel that the
carriage struck off upon a different road, and finding herself in the