It was long. They reached Mansfield on Thursday, and it was not till Sunday evening that Edmund began to talk to her on the subject. Fanny fully expected to discover her very own first strands of silver in her hair after that conversation.

He was sitting with her on a wet Sunday evening—a time when, if a friend is at hand, the heart must be opened, and everything told. No one else was in the room, except his mother, who, after hearing an affecting sermon, had cried herself to sleep. It was impossible not to speak. And so, with the usual beginnings, hardly to be traced as to what came first, and the usual declaration that if she would listen to him for a few minutes, he should be very brief[33], and certainly never tax her kindness in the same way again (she need not fear a repetition; it would be a subject prohibited entirely), he entered upon the luxury of relating circumstances and sensations of the first interest to himself, to one of whose affectionate sympathy he was quite convinced.

How Fanny listened, with what curiosity and concern, what pain and what delight, how the agitation of his voice was watched, and how carefully her own eyes were fixed on any object but himself, may be imagined. The opening was alarming. He had seen Miss Crawford. He had been invited to see her. He had received a note from Lady Stornaway to beg him to call. And regarding it as what was meant to be the last, last interview of friendship, and investing her with all the feelings of shame and wretchedness which Crawford’s sister ought to have known, he had gone to her in such a state of mind, so softened, so devoted, as made it for a few moments impossible to Fanny’s fears that it should be the last.

But as he proceeded in his story, these fears were over. Miss Crawford had met him, he said, with a serious—certainly a serious—even an agitated air; but before he had been able to speak one intelligible sentence, she had introduced the subject in a manner which he owned had shocked him.

“‘I heard you were in town,’ said she; ‘I wanted to see you. Let us talk over this sad business. What can equal the folly of our two relations?’

“I could not answer, but I believe my looks spoke. She felt reproved. Sometimes how quick to feel!

“With a graver look and voice she then added, ‘I do not mean to defend Henry at your sister’s expense.’