"I will tell you everything,
and then have done for ever. She saw it only as folly,
and that folly stamped only by exposure. The want of
common discretion, of caution: his going down to Richmond
for the whole time of her being at Twickenham; her putting
herself in the power of a servant; it was the detection,
in short--oh, Fanny! it was the detection, not the offence,
which she reprobated. It was the imprudence which had
brought things to extremity, and obliged her brother
to give up every dearer plan in order to fly with her."
He stopt. "And what," said Fanny (believing herself
required to speak), "what could you say?"
"Nothing, nothing to be understood. I was like a man stunned.
She went on, began to talk of you; yes, then she began
to talk of you, regretting, as well she might, the loss
of such a--. There she spoke very rationally. But she
has always done justice to you. 'He has thrown away,'
said she, 'such a woman as he will never see again.
She would have fixed him; she would have made him happy
for ever.' My dearest Fanny, I am giving you, I hope,
more pleasure than pain by this retrospect of what might
have been--but what never can be now.
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