rtram again in her
treatment of himself.

In this spirit he began the attack, and by animated perseverance had
soon re-established the sort of familiar intercourse, of gallantry,
of flirtation, which bounded his views; but in triumphing over the
discretion which, though beginning in anger, might have saved them both,
he had put himself in the power of feelings on her side more strong
than he had supposed. She loved him; there was no withdrawing attentions
avowedly dear to her. He was entangled by his own vanity, with as little
excuse of love as possible, and without the smallest inconstancy of mind
towards her cousin. To keep Fanny and the Bertrams from a knowledge of
what was passing became his first object. Secrecy could not have been
more desirable for Mrs. Rushworth's credit than he felt it for his own.
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 punishment, the public punishment of disgrace, should in a just
measure attend _his_ share of the offence is, we know, 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 no small
portion of 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.

After what had passed to wound and alienate the two families, the
continuance of the Bertrams and Grants in such close neighbourhood would
have been most distressing; but the absence of the latter, for some
months purposely lengthened, ended very fortunately in the necessity, or
at least the practicability, of a permanent removal. Dr. Grant, through
an interest on which he had almost ceased to form hopes