When he returned from Richmond, he would have been glad to see Mrs. Rushworth no more. All that followed was the result of her imprudence; and he went off with her at last, because he could not help it—regretting Fanny even at the moment, but regretting her infinitely more when all the bustle of the intrigue was over, and a very few months had taught him, by the force of contrast, to place a yet higher value on the sweetness of her temper, the purity of her mind, and the excellence of her principles.

That public punishment of disgrace, should in a just measure attend his share of the offence, is not one of the barriers which society gives to virtue. In this world the penalty is less equal than could be wished. But without presuming to look forward to a juster appointment hereafter, we may fairly consider a man of sense, like Henry Crawford, to be providing for himself considerable vexation and regret—vexation that must rise sometimes to self-reproach, and regret to wretchedness—in having so requited hospitality, so injured family peace, so forfeited his best, most estimable, and endeared acquaintance, and so lost the woman whom he had rationally as well as passionately loved.

It was some year and a half later, that Mr. Crawford had the terrifying pleasure of seeing Fanny again. It was quite by accident, on a street in London, and she was accompanied by close relations on a shopping excursion, and happily wedded at last to the only man she loved in this life.

“Fanny!” he had exclaimed. She turned, grew still and wooden. But then her kind features softened, for she had no longer anything to fear from him, and could only respond in mercy. Time had healed her of it, time and joyful circumstances of a personal nature.

He tried to draw her away to speak, and they exchanged some words in candour, near a storefront. At least, upon final pointed inquiry, she replied—speaking somewhat peculiar but genuine words.

“East Wind may have been the past, Henry, but Edmund is my present, not you. I admit the possibility that you—in the fullness of time, indeed, of the million lifetimes behind and yet before us—might one day be my future.

“You are learning to truly feel, and thus, one day you may learn to truly love in constancy. The barge of Osiris floats upon the great Nile for eternity. When we, as mere splinters of the reed, are temporarily rowed ashore to embark upon a given lifetime, we encounter each other upon that shore’s brief stop. When the time to rejoin the river of eternity draws near, we may chuse to remain indefinitely in the shallows near the shore, to wait, suspended between the heaven and the earth, Life and Eternity, as we dream of our love and recollect our being. It is what East Wind had done when he had waited for me three thousand years.