The servant of Mrs.Rushworth, the mother, had exposure in her power, and supported by her mistress, was not to be silenced.

The two ladies, even in the short time they had been together, had disagreed; and the bitterness of the elder against her daughter-in-law might perhaps arise almost as much from the personal disrespect with which she had herself been treated as from sensibility for her son.
However that might be, she was unmanageable.

But had she been less obstinate, or of less weight with her son, who was always guided by the last speaker, by the person who could get hold of and shut him up, the case would still have been hopeless, for Mrs.Rushworth did not appear again, and there was every reason to conclude her to be concealed somewhere with Mr.Crawford, who had quitted his uncle's house, as for a journey, on the very day of her absenting herself.
Sir Thomas, however, remained yet a little longer in town, in the hope of discovering and snatching her from farther vice, though all was lost on the side of character.
_His_ present state Fanny could hardly bear to think of.

There was but one of his children who was not at this time a source of misery to him.

Tom's complaints had been greatly heightened by the shock of his sister's conduct, and his recovery so much thrown back by it, that even Lady Bertram had been struck by the difference, and all her alarms were regularly sent off to her husband; and Julia's elopement, the additional blow which had met him on his arrival in London, though its force had been deadened at the moment, must, she knew, be sorely felt.