His punishment followed his conduct, as did a
deeper punishment the deeper guilt of his wife. _He_ was released from
the engagement, to be mortified and unhappy till some other pretty girl
could attract him into matrimony again, and he might set forward on a
second, and it is to be hoped more prosperous trial of the state--if
duped, to be duped at least with good humor and good luck; while _she_
must withdraw with infinitely stronger feelings, to a retirement and
reproach which could allow no second spring of hope or character.

Where she could be placed, became a subject of most melancholy and
momentous consultation. Mrs. Norris, whose attachment seemed to augment
with the demerits of her niece, would have had her received at home and
countenanced by them all. Sir Thomas would not hear of it; and Mrs.
Norris's anger against Fanny was so much the greater, from considering
_her_ residence there as the motive. She persisted in placing his
scruples to _her_ account, though Sir Thomas very solemnly assured her
that had there been no young woman in question, had there been no young
person of either sex belonging to him, to be endangered by the society
or hurt by the character of Mrs. Rushworth, he would never have offered
so great an insult to the neighborhood as to expect it to notice her. As
a daughter--he hoped a penitent one--she should be protected by him, and
secured in every comfort and supported by every encouragement to do
right which their relative situations admitted; but farther than _that_
he would not go. Maria had destroyed her own character; and he would
not, by a vain attempt to restore what never could be restored, be
affording his sanction to vice, or, in seeking to lessen its disgrace,
be anywise accessory to introducing such misery in another man's family
as he had known himself....

Henry Crawford, ruined by early independence and bad domestic example,
indulged in the freaks of a cold-blooded vanity a little too long. Once
it had, by an opening undesigned and unmerited, led him into the way of
happiness. Could he have been satisfied with the conquest of one amiable
woman's affections, could he have found sufficient exultation in
overcoming the reluctance, in working himself into the esteem and
tenderness of Fanny Price, there would have been every probability of
success and felicity for him. His affection had already done something.
Her influence over him had already given him some influence over her.