Sense and Sensibility

CHAPTER 44

Eli­nor, start­ing back with a look of hor­ror at the sight of him, obeyed the first im­pulse of her heart in turn­ing in­stant­ly to quit the room, and her hand was al­ready on the lock, when its ac­tion was sus­pend­ed by his hasti­ly ad­vanc­ing, and say­ing, in a voice rather of com­mand than sup­pli­ca­tion,

“Miss Dash­wood, for half an hour–for ten min­utes– I en­treat you to stay.”

“No, sir,” she replied with firm­ness, “I shall NOT stay. Your busi­ness can­not be with ME. The ser­vants, I sup­pose, for­got to tell you that Mr. Palmer was not in the house.”

“Had they told me,” he cried with ve­he­mence, “that Mr. Palmer and all his re­la­tions were at the dev­il, it would not have turned me from the door. My busi­ness is with you, and on­ly you.”

“With me!”–in the ut­most amaze­ment–“well, sir,– be quick–and if you can–less vi­olent.”

“Sit down, and I will be both.”

She hes­itat­ed; she knew not what to do. The pos­si­bil­ity of Colonel Bran­don’s ar­riv­ing and find­ing her there, came across her. But she had promised to hear him, and her cu­rios­ity no less than her hon­or was en­gaged. Af­ter a mo­ment’s rec­ol­lec­tion, there­fore, con­clud­ing that pru­dence re­quired dis­patch, and that her ac­qui­es­cence would best pro­mote it, she walked silent­ly to­wards the ta­ble, and sat down. He took the op­po­site chair, and for half a minute not a word was said by ei­ther.

“Pray be quick, sir,”–said Eli­nor, im­pa­tient­ly;– “I have no time to spare.”

He was sit­ting in an at­ti­tude of deep med­ita­tion, and seemed not to hear her.

“Your sis­ter,” said he, with abrupt­ness, a mo­ment af­ter­wards–“is out of dan­ger. I heard it from the ser­vant. God be praised!–But is it true? is it re­al­ly true?”

Eli­nor would not speak. He re­peat­ed the in­quiry with yet greater ea­ger­ness.

“For God’s sake tell me, is she out of dan­ger, or is she not?”

“We hope she is.”

He rose up, and walked across the room.

“Had I known as much half an hour ago–But since I AM here,”–speak­ing with a forced vi­vac­ity as he re­turned to his seat–“what does it sig­ni­fy?–For once, Miss Dash­wood–it will be the last time, per­haps–let us be cheer­ful to­geth­er.–I am in a fine mood for gai­ety.– Tell me hon­est­ly”–a deep­er glow over­spread­ing his cheeks– “do you think me most a knave or a fool?”

Eli­nor looked at him with greater as­ton­ish­ment than ev­er. She be­gan to think that be must be in liquor;–the strangeness of such a vis­it, and of such man­ners, seemed no oth­er­wise in­tel­li­gi­ble; and with this im­pres­sion she im­me­di­ate­ly rose, say­ing,

“Mr. Willough­by, I ad­vise you at present to re­turn to Combe–I am not at leisure to re­main with you longer.– What­ev­er your busi­ness may be with me, will it be bet­ter rec­ol­lect­ed and ex­plained to-​mor­row.”

“I un­der­stand you,” he replied, with an ex­pres­sive smile, and a voice per­fect­ly calm; “yes, I am very drunk.– A pint of porter with my cold beef at Marl­bor­ough was enough to over-​set me.”

“At Marl­bor­ough!”–cried Eli­nor, more and more at a loss to un­der­stand what he would be at.

“Yes,–I left Lon­don this morn­ing at eight o’clock, and the on­ly ten min­utes I have spent out of my chaise since that time pro­cured me a nun­cheon at Marl­bor­ough.”

The steadi­ness of his man­ner, and the in­tel­li­gence of his eye as he spoke, con­vinc­ing Eli­nor, that what­ev­er oth­er un­par­don­able fol­ly might bring him to Cleve­land, he was not brought there by in­tox­ica­tion, she said, af­ter a mo­ment’s rec­ol­lec­tion,

“Mr. Willough­by, you OUGHT to feel, and I cer­tain­ly DO–that af­ter what has passed–your com­ing here in this man­ner, and forc­ing your­self up­on my no­tice, re­quires a very par­tic­ular ex­cuse.–What is it, that you mean by it?”–

“I mean,”–said he, with se­ri­ous en­er­gy–“if I can, to make you hate me one de­gree less than you do NOW. I mean to of­fer some kind of ex­pla­na­tion, some kind of apol­ogy, for the past; to open my whole heart to you, and by con­vinc­ing you, that though I have been al­ways a block­head, I have not been al­ways a ras­cal, to ob­tain some­thing like for­give­ness from Ma–from your sis­ter.”

“Is this the re­al rea­son of your com­ing?”

“Up­on my soul it is,”–was his an­swer, with a warmth which brought all the for­mer Willough­by to her re­mem­brance, and in spite of her­self made her think him sin­cere.

“If that is all, you may be sat­is­fied al­ready,– for Mar­ianne DOES–she has LONG for­giv­en you.”

“Has she?”–he cried, in the same ea­ger tone.– “Then she has for­giv­en me be­fore she ought to have done it. But she shall for­give me again, and on more rea­son­able grounds.–NOW will you lis­ten to me?”

Eli­nor bowed her as­sent.

“I do not know,” said he, af­ter a pause of ex­pec­ta­tion on her side, and thought­ful­ness on his own,–“how YOU may have ac­count­ed for my be­haviour to your sis­ter, or what di­abol­ical mo­tive you may have im­put­ed to me.– Per­haps you will hard­ly think the bet­ter of me,–it is worth the tri­al how­ev­er, and you shall hear ev­ery thing. When I first be­came in­ti­mate in your fam­ily, I had no oth­er in­ten­tion, no oth­er view in the ac­quain­tance than to pass my time pleas­ant­ly while I was obliged to re­main in De­von­shire, more pleas­ant­ly than I had ev­er done be­fore. Your sis­ter’s love­ly per­son and in­ter­est­ing man­ners could not but please me; and her be­haviour to me al­most from the first, was of a kind–It is as­ton­ish­ing, when I re­flect on what it was, and what SHE was, that my heart should have been so in­sen­si­ble! But at first I must con­fess, my van­ity on­ly was el­evat­ed by it. Care­less of her hap­pi­ness, think­ing on­ly of my own amuse­ment, giv­ing way to feel­ings which I had al­ways been too much in the habit of in­dulging, I en­deav­oured, by ev­ery means in my pow­er, to make my­self pleas­ing to her, with­out any de­sign of re­turn­ing her af­fec­tion.”

Miss Dash­wood, at this point, turn­ing her eyes on him with the most an­gry con­tempt, stopped him, by say­ing,

“It is hard­ly worth while, Mr. Willough­by, for you to re­late, or for me to lis­ten any longer. Such a be­gin­ning as this can­not be fol­lowed by any thing.– Do not let me be pained by hear­ing any thing more on the sub­ject.”

“I in­sist on you hear­ing the whole of it,” he replied, “My for­tune was nev­er large, and I had al­ways been ex­pen­sive, al­ways in the habit of as­so­ci­at­ing with peo­ple of bet­ter in­come than my­self. Ev­ery year since my com­ing of age, or even be­fore, I be­lieve, had added to my debts; and though the death of my old cousin, Mrs. Smith, was to set me free; yet that event be­ing un­cer­tain, and pos­si­bly far dis­tant, it had been for some time my in­ten­tion to re-​es­tab­lish my cir­cum­stances by mar­ry­ing a wom­an of for­tune. To at­tach my­self to your sis­ter, there­fore, was not a thing to be thought of;–and with a mean­ness, self­ish­ness, cru­el­ty– which no in­dig­nant, no con­temp­tu­ous look, even of yours, Miss Dash­wood, can ev­er repro­bate too much–I was act­ing in this man­ner, try­ing to en­gage her re­gard, with­out a thought of re­turn­ing it.–But one thing may be said for me: even in that hor­rid state of self­ish van­ity, I did not know the ex­tent of the in­jury I med­itat­ed, be­cause I did not THEN know what it was to love. But have I ev­er known it?–Well may it be doubt­ed; for, had I re­al­ly loved, could I have sac­ri­ficed my feel­ings to van­ity, to avarice?–or, what is more, could I have sac­ri­ficed hers?– But I have done it. To avoid a com­par­ative pover­ty, which her af­fec­tion and her so­ci­ety would have de­prived of all its hor­rors, I have, by rais­ing my­self to af­flu­ence, lost ev­ery thing that could make it a bless­ing.”

“You did then,” said Eli­nor, a lit­tle soft­ened, “be­lieve your­self at one time at­tached to her?”

“To have re­sist­ed such at­trac­tions, to have with­stood such ten­der­ness!–Is there a man on earth who could have done it?–Yes, I found my­self, by in­sen­si­ble de­grees, sin­cere­ly fond of her; and the hap­pi­est hours of my life were what I spent with her when I felt my in­ten­tions were strict­ly hon­ourable, and my feel­ings blame­less. Even THEN, how­ev­er, when ful­ly de­ter­mined on pay­ing my ad­dress­es to her, I al­lowed my­self most im­prop­er­ly to put off, from day to day, the mo­ment of do­ing it, from an un­will­ing­ness to en­ter in­to an en­gage­ment while my cir­cum­stances were so great­ly em­bar­rassed. I will not rea­son here–nor will I stop for YOU to ex­pa­ti­ate on the ab­sur­di­ty, and the worse than ab­sur­di­ty, of scru­pling to en­gage my faith where my hon­our was al­ready bound. The event has proved, that I was a cun­ning fool, pro­vid­ing with great cir­cum­spec­tion for a pos­si­ble op­por­tu­ni­ty of mak­ing my­self con­temptible and wretched for ev­er. At last, how­ev­er, my res­olu­tion was tak­en, and I had de­ter­mined, as soon as I could en­gage her alone, to jus­ti­fy the at­ten­tions I had so in­vari­ably paid her, and open­ly as­sure her of an af­fec­tion which I had al­ready tak­en such pains to dis­play. But in the in­ter­im–in the in­ter­im of the very few hours that were to pass, be­fore I could have an op­por­tu­ni­ty of speak­ing with her in pri­vate– a cir­cum­stance oc­curred–an un­lucky cir­cum­stance, to ru­in all my res­olu­tion, and with it all my com­fort. A dis­cov­ery took place,”–here he hes­itat­ed and looked down.–“Mrs. Smith had some­how or oth­er been in­formed, I imag­ine by some dis­tant re­la­tion, whose in­ter­est it was to de­prive me of her favour, of an af­fair, a con­nec­tion–but I need not ex­plain my­self far­ther,” he added, look­ing at her with an height­ened colour and an en­quir­ing eye–“your par­tic­ular in­ti­ma­cy–you have prob­ably heard the whole sto­ry long ago.”

“I have,” re­turned Eli­nor, colour­ing like­wise, and hard­en­ing her heart anew against any com­pas­sion for him, “I have heard it all. And how you will ex­plain away any part of your guilt in that dread­ful busi­ness, I con­fess is be­yond my com­pre­hen­sion.”

“Re­mem­ber,” cried Willough­by, “from whom you re­ceived the ac­count. Could it be an im­par­tial one? I ac­knowl­edge that her sit­ua­tion and her char­ac­ter ought to have been re­spect­ed by me. I do not mean to jus­ti­fy my­self, but at the same time can­not leave you to sup­pose that I have noth­ing to urge–that be­cause she was in­jured she was ir­re­proach­able, and be­cause I was a lib­er­tine, SHE must be a saint. If the vi­olence of her pas­sions, the weak­ness of her un­der­stand­ing–I do not mean, how­ev­er, to de­fend my­self. Her af­fec­tion for me de­served bet­ter treat­ment, and I of­ten, with great self-​re­proach, re­call the ten­der­ness which, for a very short time, had the pow­er of cre­at­ing any re­turn. I wish–I hearti­ly wish it had nev­er been. But I have in­jured more than her­self; and I have in­jured one, whose af­fec­tion for me–(may I say it?) was scarce­ly less warm than hers; and whose mind–Oh! how in­finite­ly su­pe­ri­or!”–

“Your in­dif­fer­ence, how­ev­er, to­wards that un­for­tu­nate girl–I must say it, un­pleas­ant to me as the dis­cus­sion of such a sub­ject may well be–your in­dif­fer­ence is no apol­ogy for your cru­el ne­glect of her. Do not think your­self ex­cused by any weak­ness, any nat­ural de­fect of un­der­stand­ing on her side, in the wan­ton cru­el­ty so ev­ident on yours. You must have known, that while you were en­joy­ing your­self in De­von­shire pur­su­ing fresh schemes, al­ways gay, al­ways hap­py, she was re­duced to the ex­tremest in­di­gence.”

“But, up­on my soul, I did NOT know it,” he warm­ly replied; “I did not rec­ol­lect that I had omit­ted to give her my di­rec­tion; and com­mon sense might have told her how to find it out.”

“Well, sir, and what said Mrs. Smith?”

“She taxed me with the of­fence at once, and my con­fu­sion may be guessed. The pu­ri­ty of her life, the for­mal­ity of her no­tions, her ig­no­rance of the world–ev­ery thing was against me. The mat­ter it­self I could not de­ny, and vain was ev­ery en­deav­our to soft­en it. She was pre­vi­ous­ly dis­posed, I be­lieve, to doubt the moral­ity of my con­duct in gen­er­al, and was more­over dis­con­tent­ed with the very lit­tle at­ten­tion, the very lit­tle por­tion of my time that I had be­stowed on her, in my present vis­it. In short, it end­ed in a to­tal breach. By one mea­sure I might have saved my­self. In the height of her moral­ity, good wom­an! she of­fered to for­give the past, if I would mar­ry Eliza. That could not be–and I was for­mal­ly dis­missed from her favour and her house. The night fol­low­ing this af­fair–I was to go the next morn­ing– was spent by me in de­lib­er­at­ing on what my fu­ture con­duct should be. The strug­gle was great–but it end­ed too soon. My af­fec­tion for Mar­ianne, my thor­ough con­vic­tion of her at­tach­ment to me–it was all in­suf­fi­cient to out­weigh that dread of pover­ty, or get the bet­ter of those false ideas of the ne­ces­si­ty of rich­es, which I was nat­ural­ly in­clined to feel, and ex­pen­sive so­ci­ety had in­creased. I had rea­son to be­lieve my­self se­cure of my present wife, if I chose to ad­dress her, and I per­suad­ed my­self to think that noth­ing else in com­mon pru­dence re­mained for me to do. A heavy scene how­ev­er await­ed me, be­fore I could leave De­von­shire;–I was en­gaged to dine with you on that very day; some apol­ogy was there­fore nec­es­sary for my break­ing this en­gage­ment. But whether I should write this apol­ogy, or de­liv­er it in per­son, was a point of long de­bate. To see Mar­ianne, I felt, would be dread­ful, and I even doubt­ed whether I could see her again, and keep to my res­olu­tion. In that point, how­ev­er, I un­der­val­ued my own mag­na­nim­ity, as the event de­clared; for I went, I saw her, and saw her mis­er­able, and left her mis­er­able–and left her hop­ing nev­er to see her again.”

“Why did you call, Mr. Willough­by?” said Eli­nor, re­proach­ful­ly; “a note would have an­swered ev­ery pur­pose.– Why was it nec­es­sary to call?”

“It was nec­es­sary to my own pride. I could not bear to leave the coun­try in a man­ner that might lead you, or the rest of the neigh­bour­hood, to sus­pect any part of what had re­al­ly passed be­tween Mrs. Smith and my­self– and I re­solved there­fore on call­ing at the cot­tage, in my way to Honi­ton. The sight of your dear sis­ter, how­ev­er, was re­al­ly dread­ful; and, to height­en the mat­ter, I found her alone. You were all gone I do not know where. I had left her on­ly the evening be­fore, so ful­ly, so firm­ly re­solved with­in my self on do­ing right! A few hours were to have en­gaged her to me for ev­er; and I re­mem­ber how hap­py, how gay were my spir­its, as I walked from the cot­tage to Al­len­ham, sat­is­fied with my­self, de­light­ed with ev­ery body! But in this, our last in­ter­view of friend­ship, I ap­proached her with a sense of guilt that al­most took from me the pow­er of dis­sem­bling. Her sor­row, her dis­ap­point­ment, her deep re­gret, when I told her that I was obliged to leave De­von­shire so im­me­di­ate­ly–I nev­er shall for­get it–unit­ed too with such re­liance, such con­fi­dence in me!–Oh, God!–what a hard-​heart­ed ras­cal I was!”

They were both silent for a few mo­ments. Eli­nor first spoke.

“Did you tell her that you should soon re­turn?”

“I do not know what I told her,” he replied, im­pa­tient­ly; “less than was due to the past, be­yond a doubt, and in all like­li­hood much more than was jus­ti­fied by the fu­ture. I can­not think of it.–It won’t do.–Then came your dear moth­er to tor­ture me far­ther, with all her kind­ness and con­fi­dence. Thank Heav­en! it DID tor­ture me. I was mis­er­able. Miss Dash­wood, you can­not have an idea of the com­fort it gives me to look back on my own mis­ery. I owe such a grudge to my­self for the stupid, ras­cal­ly fol­ly of my own heart, that all my past suf­fer­ings un­der it are on­ly tri­umph and ex­ul­ta­tion to me now. Well, I went, left all that I loved, and went to those to whom, at best, I was on­ly in­dif­fer­ent. My jour­ney to town–trav­el­ling with my own hors­es, and there­fore so te­dious­ly–no crea­ture to speak to–my own re­flec­tions so cheer­ful–when I looked for­ward ev­ery thing so invit­ing!–when I looked back at Bar­ton, the pic­ture so sooth­ing!–oh, it was a blessed jour­ney!”

He stopped.

“Well, sir,” said Eli­nor, who, though pity­ing him, grew im­pa­tient for his de­par­ture, “and this is all?”

“Ah!–no,–have you for­got what passed in town?– That in­fa­mous let­ter–Did she shew it you?”

“Yes, I saw ev­ery note that passed.”

“When the first of hers reached me (as it im­me­di­ate­ly did, for I was in town the whole time,) what I felt is– in the com­mon phrase, not to be ex­pressed; in a more sim­ple one–per­haps too sim­ple to raise any emo­tion– my feel­ings were very, very painful.–Ev­ery line, ev­ery word was–in the hack­neyed metaphor which their dear writ­er, were she here, would for­bid–a dag­ger to my heart. To know that Mar­ianne was in town was–in the same lan­guage– a thun­der­bolt.–Thun­der­bolts and dag­gers!–what a re­proof would she have giv­en me!–her taste, her opin­ions–I be­lieve they are bet­ter known to me than my own,–and I am sure they are dear­er.”

Eli­nor’s heart, which had un­der­gone many changes in the course of this ex­traor­di­nary con­ver­sa­tion, was now soft­ened again;–yet she felt it her du­ty to check such ideas in her com­pan­ion as the last.

“This is not right, Mr. Willough­by.–Re­mem­ber that you are mar­ried. Re­late on­ly what in your con­science you think nec­es­sary for me to hear.”

“Mar­ianne’s note, by as­sur­ing me that I was still as dear to her as in for­mer days, that in spite of the many, many weeks we had been sep­arat­ed, she was as con­stant in her own feel­ings, and as full of faith in the con­stan­cy of mine as ev­er, awak­ened all my re­morse. I say awak­ened, be­cause time and Lon­don, busi­ness and dis­si­pa­tion, had in some mea­sure qui­et­ed it, and I had been grow­ing a fine hard­ened vil­lain, fan­cy­ing my­self in­dif­fer­ent to her, and chus­ing to fan­cy that she too must have be­come in­dif­fer­ent to me; talk­ing to my­self of our past at­tach­ment as a mere idle, tri­fling busi­ness, shrug­ging up my shoul­ders in proof of its be­ing so, and si­lenc­ing ev­ery re­proach, over­com­ing ev­ery scru­ple, by se­cret­ly say­ing now and then, ‘I shall be hearti­ly glad to hear she is well mar­ried.’– But this note made me know my­self bet­ter. I felt that she was in­finite­ly dear­er to me than any oth­er wom­an in the world, and that I was us­ing her in­fa­mous­ly. But ev­ery thing was then just set­tled be­tween Miss Grey and me. To re­treat was im­pos­si­ble. All that I had to do, was to avoid you both. I sent no an­swer to Mar­ianne, in­tend­ing by that to pre­serve my­self from her far­ther no­tice; and for some time I was even de­ter­mined not to call in Berke­ley Street;–but at last, judg­ing it wis­er to af­fect the air of a cool, com­mon ac­quain­tance than any­thing else, I watched you all safe­ly out of the house one morn­ing, and left my name.”

“Watched us out of the house!”

“Even so. You would be sur­prised to hear how of­ten I watched you, how of­ten I was on the point of falling in with you. I have en­tered many a shop to avoid your sight, as the car­riage drove by. Lodg­ing as I did in Bond Street, there was hard­ly a day in which I did not catch a glimpse of one or oth­er of you; and noth­ing but the most con­stant watch­ful­ness on my side, a most in­vari­ably pre­vail­ing de­sire to keep out of your sight, could have sep­arat­ed us so long. I avoid­ed the Mid­dle­tons as much as pos­si­ble, as well as ev­ery­body else who was like­ly to prove an ac­quain­tance in com­mon. Not aware of their be­ing in town, how­ev­er, I blun­dered on Sir John, I be­lieve, the first day of his com­ing, and the day af­ter I had called at Mrs. Jen­nings’s. He asked me to a par­ty, a dance at his house in the evening.–Had he NOT told me as an in­duce­ment that you and your sis­ter were to be there, I should have felt it too cer­tain a thing, to trust my­self near him. The next morn­ing brought an­oth­er short note from Mar­ianne– still af­fec­tion­ate, open, art­less, con­fid­ing–ev­ery­thing that could make MY con­duct most hate­ful. I could not an­swer it. I tried–but could not frame a sen­tence. But I thought of her, I be­lieve, ev­ery mo­ment of the day. If you CAN pity me, Miss Dash­wood, pity my sit­ua­tion as it was THEN. With my head and heart full of your sis­ter, I was forced to play the hap­py lover to an­oth­er wom­an!–Those three or four weeks were worse than all. Well, at last, as I need not tell you, you were forced on me; and what a sweet fig­ure I cut!–what an evening of agony it was!– Mar­ianne, beau­ti­ful as an an­gel on one side, call­ing me Willough­by in such a tone!–Oh, God!–hold­ing out her hand to me, ask­ing me for an ex­pla­na­tion, with those be­witch­ing eyes fixed in such speak­ing so­lic­itude on my face!–and Sophia, jeal­ous as the dev­il on the oth­er hand, look­ing all that was–Well, it does not sig­ni­fy; it is over now.– Such an evening!–I ran away from you all as soon as I could; but not be­fore I had seen Mar­ianne’s sweet face as white as death.–THAT was the last, last look I ev­er had of her;– the last man­ner in which she ap­peared to me. It was a hor­rid sight!–yet when I thought of her to-​day as re­al­ly dy­ing, it was a kind of com­fort to me to imag­ine that I knew ex­act­ly how she would ap­pear to those, who saw her last in this world. She was be­fore me, con­stant­ly be­fore me, as I trav­elled, in the same look and hue.”

A short pause of mu­tu­al thought­ful­ness suc­ceed­ed. Willough­by first rous­ing him­self, broke it thus:

“Well, let me make haste and be gone. Your sis­ter is cer­tain­ly bet­ter, cer­tain­ly out of dan­ger?”

“We are as­sured of it.”

“Your poor moth­er, too!–dot­ing on Mar­ianne.”

“But the let­ter, Mr. Willough­by, your own let­ter; have you any thing to say about that?”

“Yes, yes, THAT in par­tic­ular. Your sis­ter wrote to me again, you know, the very next morn­ing. You saw what she said. I was break­fast­ing at the El­lisons,–and her let­ter, with some oth­ers, was brought to me there from my lodg­ings. It hap­pened to catch Sophia’s eye be­fore it caught mine–and its size, the el­egance of the pa­per, the hand-​writ­ing al­to­geth­er, im­me­di­ate­ly gave her a sus­pi­cion. Some vague re­port had reached her be­fore of my at­tach­ment to some young la­dy in De­von­shire, and what had passed with­in her ob­ser­va­tion the pre­ced­ing evening had marked who the young la­dy was, and made her more jeal­ous than ev­er. Af­fect­ing that air of play­ful­ness, there­fore, which is de­light­ful in a wom­an one loves, she opened the let­ter di­rect­ly, and read its con­tents. She was well paid for her im­pu­dence. She read what made her wretched. Her wretched­ness I could have borne, but her pas­sion–her mal­ice–At all events it must be ap­peased. And, in short–what do you think of my wife’s style of let­ter-​writ­ing?–del­icate–ten­der– tru­ly fem­inine–was it not?”

“Your wife!–The let­ter was in your own hand-​writ­ing.”

“Yes, but I had on­ly the cred­it of servile­ly copy­ing such sen­tences as I was ashamed to put my name to. The orig­inal was all her own–her own hap­py thoughts and gen­tle dic­tion. But what could I do!–we were en­gaged, ev­ery thing in prepa­ra­tion, the day al­most fixed–But I am talk­ing like a fool. Prepa­ra­tion!–day!–In hon­est words, her mon­ey was nec­es­sary to me, and in a sit­ua­tion like mine, any thing was to be done to pre­vent a rup­ture. And af­ter all, what did it sig­ni­fy to my char­ac­ter in the opin­ion of Mar­ianne and her friends, in what lan­guage my an­swer was couched?–It must have been on­ly to one end. My busi­ness was to de­clare my­self a scoundrel, and whether I did it with a bow or a blus­ter was of lit­tle im­por­tance.– ‘I am ru­ined for ev­er in their opin­ion–’ said I to my­self–’I am shut out for ev­er from their so­ci­ety, they al­ready think me an un­prin­ci­pled fel­low, this let­ter will on­ly make them think me a black­guard one.’ Such were my rea­son­ings, as, in a sort of des­per­ate care­less­ness, I copied my wife’s words, and part­ed with the last relics of Mar­ianne. Her three notes–un­luck­ily they were all in my pock­et­book, or I should have de­nied their ex­is­tence, and hoard­ed them for ev­er–I was forced to put them up, and could not even kiss them. And the lock of hair–that too I had al­ways car­ried about me in the same pock­et-​book, which was now searched by Madam with the most in­gra­ti­at­ing vir­ulence,–the dear lock–all, ev­ery me­men­to was torn from me.”

“You are very wrong, Mr. Willough­by, very blam­able,” said Eli­nor, while her voice, in spite of her­self, be­trayed her com­pas­sion­ate emo­tion; “you ought not to speak in this way, ei­ther of Mrs. Willough­by or my sis­ter. You had made your own choice. It was not forced on you. Your wife has a claim to your po­lite­ness, to your re­spect, at least. She must be at­tached to you, or she would not have mar­ried you. To treat her with un­kind­ness, to speak of her slight­ing­ly is no atone­ment to Mar­ianne–nor can I sup­pose it a re­lief to your own con­science.”

“Do not talk to me of my wife,” said he with a heavy sigh.– “She does not de­serve your com­pas­sion.–She knew I had no re­gard for her when we mar­ried.–Well, mar­ried we were, and came down to Combe Magna to be hap­py, and af­ter­wards re­turned to town to be gay.–And now do you pity me, Miss Dash­wood?–or have I said all this to no pur­pose?– Am I–be it on­ly one de­gree–am I less guilty in your opin­ion than I was be­fore?–My in­ten­tions were not al­ways wrong. Have I ex­plained away any part of my guilt?”

“Yes, you have cer­tain­ly re­moved some­thing–a lit­tle.– You have proved your­self, on the whole, less faulty than I had be­lieved you. You have proved your heart less wicked, much less wicked. But I hard­ly know–the mis­ery that you have in­flict­ed–I hard­ly know what could have made it worse.”

“Will you re­peat to your sis­ter when she is re­cov­ered, what I have been telling you?–Let me be a lit­tle light­ened too in her opin­ion as well as in yours. You tell me that she has for­giv­en me al­ready. Let me be able to fan­cy that a bet­ter knowl­edge of my heart, and of my present feel­ings, will draw from her a more spon­ta­neous, more nat­ural, more gen­tle, less dig­ni­fied, for­give­ness. Tell her of my mis­ery and my pen­itence–tell her that my heart was nev­er in­con­stant to her, and if you will, that at this mo­ment she is dear­er to me than ev­er.”

“I will tell her all that is nec­es­sary to what may com­par­ative­ly be called, your jus­ti­fi­ca­tion. But you have not ex­plained to me the par­tic­ular rea­son of your com­ing now, nor how you heard of her ill­ness.”

“Last night, in Drury Lane lob­by, I ran against Sir John Mid­dle­ton, and when he saw who I was–for the first time these two months–he spoke to me.–That he had cut me ev­er since my mar­riage, I had seen with­out sur­prise or re­sent­ment. Now, how­ev­er, his good-​na­tured, hon­est, stupid soul, full of in­dig­na­tion against me, and con­cern for your sis­ter, could not re­sist the temp­ta­tion of telling me what he knew ought to–though prob­ably he did not think it WOULD–vex me hor­rid­ly. As blunt­ly as he could speak it, there­fore, he told me that Mar­ianne Dash­wood was dy­ing of a pu­trid fever at Cleve­land–a let­ter that morn­ing re­ceived from Mrs. Jen­nings de­clared her dan­ger most im­mi­nent–the Palmers are all gone off in a fright, &c.–I was too much shocked to be able to pass my­self off as in­sen­si­ble even to the undis­cern­ing Sir John. His heart was soft­ened in see­ing mine suf­fer; and so much of his ill-​will was done away, that when we part­ed, he al­most shook me by the hand while he re­mind­ed me of an old promise about a point­er pup­py. What I felt on hear­ing that your sis­ter was dy­ing–and dy­ing too, be­liev­ing me the great­est vil­lain up­on earth, scorn­ing, hat­ing me in her lat­est mo­ments–for how could I tell what hor­rid projects might not have been im­put­ed? ONE per­son I was sure would rep­re­sent me as ca­pa­ble of any thing– What I felt was dread­ful!–My res­olu­tion was soon made, and at eight o’clock this morn­ing I was in my car­riage. Now you know all.”

Eli­nor made no an­swer. Her thoughts were silent­ly fixed on the ir­repara­ble in­jury which too ear­ly an in­de­pen­dence and its con­se­quent habits of idle­ness, dis­si­pa­tion, and lux­ury, had made in the mind, the char­ac­ter, the hap­pi­ness, of a man who, to ev­ery ad­van­tage of per­son and tal­ents, unit­ed a dis­po­si­tion nat­ural­ly open and hon­est, and a feel­ing, af­fec­tion­ate tem­per. The world had made him ex­trav­agant and vain–Ex­trav­agance and van­ity had made him cold-​heart­ed and self­ish. Van­ity, while seek­ing its own guilty tri­umph at the ex­pense of an­oth­er, had in­volved him in a re­al at­tach­ment, which ex­trav­agance, or at least its off­spring, ne­ces­si­ty, had re­quired to be sac­ri­ficed. Each faulty propen­si­ty in lead­ing him to evil, had led him like­wise to pun­ish­ment. The at­tach­ment, from which against hon­our, against feel­ing, against ev­ery bet­ter in­ter­est he had out­ward­ly torn him­self, now, when no longer al­low­able, gov­erned ev­ery thought; and the con­nec­tion, for the sake of which he had, with lit­tle scru­ple, left her sis­ter to mis­ery, was like­ly to prove a source of un­hap­pi­ness to him­self of a far more in­cur­able na­ture. From a rever­ie of this kind she was re­called at the end of some min­utes by Willough­by, who, rous­ing him­self from a rever­ie at least equal­ly painful, start­ed up in prepa­ra­tion for go­ing, and said–

“There is no use in stay­ing here; I must be off.”

“Are you go­ing back to town?”

“No–to Combe Magna. I have busi­ness there; from thence to town in a day or two. Good bye.”

He held out his hand. She could not refuse to give him hers’s;–he pressed it with af­fec­tion.

“And you DO think some­thing bet­ter of me than you did?”–said he, let­ting it fall, and lean­ing against the man­tel-​piece as if for­get­ting he was to go.

Eli­nor as­sured him that she did;–that she for­gave, pitied, wished him well–was even in­ter­est­ed in his hap­pi­ness–and added some gen­tle coun­sel as to the be­haviour most like­ly to pro­mote it. His an­swer was not very en­cour­ag­ing.

“As to that,” said he, “I must rub through the world as well as I can. Do­mes­tic hap­pi­ness is out of the ques­tion. If, how­ev­er, I am al­lowed to think that you and yours feel an in­ter­est in my fate and ac­tions, it may be the means–it may put me on my guard–at least, it may be some­thing to live for. Mar­ianne to be sure is lost to me for ev­er. Were I even by any blessed chance at lib­er­ty again–“

Eli­nor stopped him with a re­proof.

“Well,”–he replied–“once more good bye. I shall now go away and live in dread of one event.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your sis­ter’s mar­riage.”

“You are very wrong. She can nev­er be more lost to you than she is now.”

“But she will be gained by some one else. And if that some one should be the very he whom, of all oth­ers, I could least bear–but I will not stay to rob my­self of all your com­pas­sion­ate good­will, by shew­ing that where I have most in­jured I can least for­give. Good bye,–God bless you!”

And with these words, he al­most ran out of the room.