It was not Mr. and Mrs. Rushworth;
it was Mrs. Rushworth and Mr. Crawford.
Fanny seemed to herself never to have been shocked before.
There was no possibility of rest. The evening passed
without a pause of misery, the night was totally sleepless.
She passed only from feelings of sickness to shudderings
of horror; and from hot fits of fever to cold. The event
was so shocking, that there were moments even when her
heart revolted from it as impossible: when she thought
it could not be. A woman married only six months ago;
a man professing himself devoted, even _engaged_ to another;
that other her near relation; the whole family,
both families connected as they were by tie upon tie;
all friends, all intimate together! It was too horrible
a confusion of guilt, too gross a complication of evil,
for human nature, not in a state of utter barbarism,
to be capable of! yet her judgment told her it was so.
_His_ unsettled affections, wavering with his vanity,
_Maria's_ decided attachment, and no sufficient principle
on either side, gave it possibility: Miss Crawford's
letter stampt it a fact.
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