From that period his penance had become severe. He had no sooner been

free from the horror and remorse attending the first few days of

Louisa's accident, no sooner begun to feel himself alive again, than he

had begun to feel himself, though alive, not at liberty.

"I found," said he, "that I was considered by Harville an engaged man!

That neither Harville nor his wife entertained a doubt of our mutual

attachment. I was startled and shocked. To a degree, I could

contradict this instantly; but, when I began to reflect that others

might have felt the same--her own family, nay, perhaps herself--I was

no longer at my own disposal. I was hers in honour if she wished it.

I had been unguarded. I had not thought seriously on this subject

before. I had not considered that my excessive intimacy must have its

danger of ill consequence in many ways; and that I had no right to be

trying whether I could attach myself to either of the girls, at the

risk of raising even an unpleasant report, were there no other ill

effects. I had been grossly wrong, and must abide the consequences."

He found too late, in short, that he had entangled himself; and that

precisely as he became fully satisfied of his not caring for Louisa at

all, he must regard himself as bound to her, if her sentiments for him

were what the Harvilles supposed. It determined him to leave Lyme, and

await her complete recovery elsewhere. He would gladly weaken, by any

fair means, whatever feelings or speculations concerning him might

exist; and he went, therefore, to his brother's, meaning after a while

to return to Kellynch, and act as circumstances might require.

"I was six weeks with Edward," said he, "and saw him happy. I could

have no other pleasure. I deserved none. He enquired after you very

particularly; asked even if you were personally altered, little

suspecting that to my eye you could never alter."

Anne smiled, and let it pass. It was too pleasing a blunder for a

reproach. It is something for a woman to be assured, in her

eight-and-twentieth year, that she has not lost one charm of earlier

youth; but the value of such homage was inexpressibly increased to

Anne, by comparing it with former words, and feeling it to be the

result, not the cause of a revival of his warm attachment.

He had remained in Shropshire, lamenting the blindness of his own

pride, and the blunders of his own calculations, till at once released

from Louisa by the astonishing and felicitous intelligence of her

engagement with Benwick.




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