The mood of the novel is often suspenseful: the reader is always waiting for Mr. B. to jump out of the closet and assault Pamela, or for Pamela to find out that Mr. B. has tricked her into a sham marriage. When Pamela finally does find out that Mr. B. has a child from a previous relationship, it feels like the other shoe finally dropping on their marriage. But Pamela handles the news gracefully, and somehow everything ends up happy for her, Mr. B., her parents, and even the servants who have sometimes colluded with Mr. B. or otherwise behaved like villains.
The odd way the suspense and horror evaporate by the end of the novel makes more sense in light of the Editor's comments at the end of "the Journal (continued)" about the morals of the book. For instance, he writes:
The poor deluded Female, who, like the once unhappy Miss GODFREY, has given up her Honour, and yielded to the Allurements of her designing Lover, may learn from her Story, to stop at the first Fault; and, by resolving to repent and amend, see the Pardon and Blessing which await her Penitence, and a kind Providence ready to extend the Arms of its Mercy to receive and reward her returning Duty.
Ultimately, Richardson does not want any young women to end up like Sally Godfrey, disgraced and exiled to Jamaica. The suspense throughout Pamela's story is not, after all, about how Mr. B. will treat her, but rather how Pamela will conduct herself in response to Mr. B.'s treatment. Because Pamela remains virtuous throughout all of her trials, she and the people she loves are "rewarded" with a happy ending. Richardson wants his readers to feel so scared of becoming like Sally Godfrey that they will be willing to endure the same awful trials Pamela went through in order to avoid such a fate. This moral places the novel in a complicated position with regard to women's rights. On the one hand, the message that women who put up with abuse will eventually be rewarded is not only misogynistic, but also dangerous. However, Richardson does make room for the idea that women have some control over their lives. That idea in itself was progressive at the time.
