“I am grieved indeed,”cried Darcy;“grieved―shocked.But is it certain―absolutely certain?”
“Oh, yes!They left Brighton together on Sunday night, and were traced almost to London,but not beyond;they are certainly not gone to Scotland.”
“When my eyes were opened to his real character―Oh!had I known what I ought,what I dared to do!But I knew not―I was afraid of doing too much.Wretched,wretched mistake!”
As he quitted the room,Elizabeth felt how improbable it was that they should ever see each other again on such terms of cordiality as had marked their several meetings in Derbyshire;and as she threw a retrospective glance over the whole of their acquaintance, so full of contradictions and varieties, sighed at the perverseness of those feelings which would now have promoted its continuance,and would formerly have rejoiced in its termination.
“When I consider,”she added in a yet more agitated voice,“that I might have prevented it!I,who knew what he was.Had I but explained some part of it only―some part of what I learnt,to my own family!Had his character been known,this could not have happened.But it is all―all too late now.”
“My father has gone to London,and Jane has written to beg my uncle's immediate assistance;and we shall be off,I hope,in half-an-hour.But nothing can be done―I know very well that nothing can be done.How is such a man to be worked on?How are they even to be discovered?I have not the smallest hope.It is every way horrible!”