Away walked Catherine in great agitation, as fast as the crowd would permit her, fearful of being pursued, yet determined to persevere.  As she walked, she reflected on what had passed.  It was painful to her to disappoint and displease them, particularly to displease her brother; but she could not repent her resistance.  Setting her own inclination apart, to have failed a second time in her engagement to Miss Tilney, to have retracted a promise voluntarily made only five minutes before, and on a false pretence too, must have been wrong.  She had not been withstanding them on selfish principles alone, she had not consulted merely her own gratification; that might have been ensured in some degree by the excursion itself, by seeing Blaize Castle; no, she had attended to what was due to others, and to her own character in their opinion.  Her conviction of being right, however, was not enough to restore her composure; till she had spoken to Miss Tilney she could not be at ease; and quickening her pace when she got clear of the Crescent, she almost ran over the remaining ground till she gained the top of Milsom Street.  So rapid had been her movements that in spite of the Tilneys’ advantage in the outset, they were but just turning into their lodgings as she came within view of them; and the servant still remaining at the open door, she used only the ceremony of saying that she must speak with Miss Tilney that moment, and hurrying by him proceeded upstairs.  Then, opening the first door before her, which happened to be the right, she immediately found herself in the drawing-room with General Tilney, his son, and daughter.  Her explanation, defective only in being —­ from her irritation of nerves and shortness of breath —­ no explanation at all, was instantly given.  “I am come in a great hurry —­ It was all a mistake —­ I never promised to go —­ I told them from the first I could not go.  —­ I ran away in a great hurry to explain it. —­ I did not care what you thought of me. —­ I would not stay for the servant.”

The business, however, though not perfectly elucidated by this speech, soon ceased to be a puzzle.  Catherine found that John Thorpe had given the message; and Miss Tilney had no scruple in owning herself greatly surprised by it.  But whether her brother had still exceeded her in resentment, Catherine, though she instinctively addressed herself as much to one as to the other in her vindication, had no means of knowing.  Whatever might have been felt before her arrival, her eager declarations immediately made every look and sentence as friendly as she could desire.

The affair thus happily settled, she was introduced by Miss Tilney to her father, and received by him with such ready, such solicitous politeness as recalled Thorpe’s information to her mind, and made her think with pleasure that he might be sometimes depended on.  To such anxious attention was the general’s civility carried, that not aware of her extraordinary swiftness in entering the house, he was quite angry with the servant whose neglect had reduced her to open the door of the apartment herself.  “What did William mean by it?  He should make a point of inquiring into the matter.”  And if Catherine had not most warmly asserted his innocence, it seemed likely that William would lose the favour of his master forever, if not his place, by her rapidity.