It was one of those cases, she saw, in which more evil was likely to flow from keeping a blind, almost extorted promise, than from breaking it.
"I ought to have seen my duty clearer," she said, in self-condemnation.

"What blindness has possessed me!" And so she fretted herself, and admitted into her once calm, trusting spirit, a flood of self-reproaches and disquietude.
Fanny, now that the so anxiously dreaded period had gone by, and there was hope that her father would learn all from Mr.Lyon before he returned home, relapsed into a more passive state of mind.

She had suffered much beyond her natural powers of endurance, in the last few days.

A kind of reaction now followed, and she experienced a feeling of indifference as to results and consequences, that was a necessary relief to the over-strained condition of mind which had for some time existed.
On the day following, another letter was received from Mr.Markland.
"You must not expect me until the last of this week," he said.
"Business matters of great importance will keep me here until that time.

I have a letter from Mr.Lyon which I do not much like.