Lady Audley's Secret uses a more subtle type of suspense than Great Expectations or Downton Abbey. It doesn't throw the characters into mortal peril seconds before the end of an installment. For example, George Talboys, the young man introduced as a major character near the beginning, goes missing. But, he doesn't go missing in a captured-by-bandits, sort of way, he just wanders off into the countryside. It doesn't even happen as the final action of the chapter. George's scene of disappearance is not nearly as dramatic as Braddon could have made it. Everyone else doesn't even realize he's missing until the next chapter. The chapters leading up through Chapter 13 are peppered with Talboys sightings.

Great Expectations and Downton Abbey would handle this type of situation very differently. Dickens probably would have had George go missing at the end of an installment, and there would have been more exciting physical action in the process of running off. Downton probably would have ended an episode with George running off to the sound of dramatic music. We'd probably get to see where he really is, and get a better idea of his motives. The main difference I've found between the way Lady Audley's Secret deals with suspense and how our other two serials deal with suspense is that Lady offers less immediate satisfaction, but the mysteries last much longer.