She had had a most exhausting day lasting from early dawn.

The strain of the trying interview at Twickenham; the anxious ordeal of singing before such supreme judges as she deemed them; the jubilation of success and the praise they had bestowed upon her, and Gay's promises as to her future had turned her brain for the time being.

Then the episode of the highwayman--that in itself was sufficiently disturbing.
As a matter of fact the girl's strength was ebbing fast when she reached Moor Fields, but she nerved herself to go on, confident of her reward in relieving the young author's anxiety and his joy at the success--up to a point--of her errand.

Things had not quite turned out as she had pictured them.

The sight of the coarse speeched, malevolent-looking man with his squinting eye and unhealthy complexion, brought back the scene of the night before which she would willingly have forgotten, and down went her spirits to zero.
While she had been talking with Vane her heart was fluttering strangely.
She had eaten nothing since she had left Twickenham and she was conscious of a weakness, of a trembling of the limbs.