What would be the consequence? Whom would it not injure?
Whose views might it not affect? Whose peace would it
not cut up for ever? Miss Crawford, herself, Edmund;
but it was dangerous, perhaps, to tread such ground.
She confined herself, or tried to confine herself, to the simple,
indubitable family misery which must envelop all, if it were
indeed a matter of certified guilt and public exposure.
The mother's sufferings, the father's; there she paused.
Julia's, Tom's, Edmund's; there a yet longer pause.
They were the two on whom it would fall most horribly.
Sir Thomas's parental solicitude and high sense of honour
and decorum, Edmund's upright principles, unsuspicious temper,
and genuine strength of feeling, made her think it
scarcely possible for them to support life and reason
under such disgrace; and it appeared to her that, as far
as this world alone was concerned, the greatest blessing
to every one of kindred with Mrs. Rushworth would be
instant annihilation.
Nothing happened the next day, or the next, to weaken
her terrors. Two posts came in, and brought no refutation,
public or private.
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