Edmund's first object the next morning was to see his father alone, and
give him a fair statement of the whole acting scheme, defending his own
share in it as far only as he could then, in a soberer moment, feel his
motives to deserve, and acknowledging, with perfect ingenuousness, that
his concession had been attended with such partial good as to make his
judgment in it very doubtful. He was anxious, while vindicating
himself, to say nothing unkind of the others: but there was only one
amongst them whose conduct he could mention without some necessity of
defence or palliation. "We have all been more or less to blame," said
he, "every one of us, excepting Fanny. Fanny is the only one who has
judged rightly throughout; who has been consistent. Her feelings
have been steadily against it from first to last. She never ceased to
think of what was due to you. You will find Fanny everything you could
wish."

Sir Thomas saw all the impropriety of such a scheme among such a party,
and at such a time, as strongly as his son had ever supposed he must;
he felt it too much, indeed, for many words; and having shaken hands
with Edmund, meant to try to lose the disagreeable impression, and
forget how much he had been forgotten himself as soon as he could,
after the house had been cleared of every object enforcing the
remembrance, and restored to its proper state. He did not enter into
any remonstrance with his other children: he was more willing to
believe they felt their error than to run the risk of investigation.
The reproof of an immediate conclusion of everything, the sweep of
every preparation, would be sufficient.