Edward is free, and by four o'clock, about three hours after he arrived, he has secured his lady and her mother's consent. How he spoke, and how he was received, need not be particularly told. He is one of the happiest of men, released without reproach from a woman he had long ceased to love. The first attachment, he says, was a foolish idle inclination, formed when he had no profession and nothing to do but fancy himself in love. He hopes it was not, at the time, inexcusable. Marianne can speak her happiness only by tears. Several hours pass before Elinor's heart has any quiet.
He puts Lucy's letter into her hands. Lucy is very sure she has long lost his affections, and scorns to accept a hand while the heart was another's. They are just returned from the altar. She has burnt his letters, will return his picture, and he may keep the ring with her hair. Elinor returns it without comment. The substance, he says, makes him some amends for the style. His mother has bribed one son with a thousand a year to do the deed she disinherited the other for intending. Robert was the favourite, and will be forgiven sooner. Until the letter, Edward had believed Lucy good-hearted. When his mother renounced him, he thought it his duty to give her the option of going on. Elinor shakes her head at the time he spent at Norland, telling himself the danger was only his own.
They have his two thousand pounds and her one, and the living, and they are not so much in love as to think three hundred and fifty a year will supply the comforts of life. He hopes his mother may change. Elinor has no such dependence. Colonel Brandon arrives knowing nothing of the marriage, and finds fresh reason to be glad of the living, since it serves her. Letters that would once have transported Elinor are read now with more mirth than emotion. Mrs Jennings has him broken-hearted at Oxford, and has given Nancy five guineas for Exeter, Lucy having taken her money to make a show. John's letter is solemn. A letter of proper submission, perhaps to Fanny, might not be taken amiss. Edward repeats the phrase. Would they have him beg his mother's pardon for Robert's ingratitude to her, and breach of honour to himself? He can make no submission. He is grown very happy, and that would not interest. Elinor says he may ask to be forgiven, because he has offended, and he might own some concern for having formed the engagement that drew on the anger. He agrees to that, and he will not write the letter. He would rather make mean concessions by word of mouth. He will go to London and ask Fanny in person. Marianne, trying candour, says that if John and Fanny really do interest themselves, they are not entirely without merit. The two gentlemen leave together. Two nights at Delaford, so Edward may see his future home, and then he goes on to town. Will the pardon he is willing to ask aloud still be called a letter of proper submission, once he has refused to sign one?
