“My dear Lizzy, where can you have been walking to?”was a question which Elizabeth received from Jane as soon as she entered their room,and from all the others when they sat down to table. She had only to say in reply, that they had wandered about, till she was beyond her own knowledge. She coloured as she spoke; but neither that, nor anything else, awakened a suspicion of the truth.
“Good Heaven!can it be really so!Yet now I must believe you,”cried Jane.“My dear,dear Lizzy,I would―I do congratulate you―but are you certain?forgive the question―are you quite certain that you can be happy with him?”
“Now I am quite happy,”said she,“for you will be as happy as myself.I always had a value for him.Were it for nothing but his love of you, I must always have esteemed him; but now, as Bingley's friend and your husband,there can be only Bingley and yourself more dear to me.But Lizzy,you have been very sly,very reserved with me. How little did you tell me of what passed at Pemberley and Lambton!I owe all that I know of it to another, not to you.”
“Very,very much.Nothing could give either Bingley or myself more delight.But we considered it,we talked of it as impossible. And do you really love him quite well enough? Oh, Lizzy! do anything rather than marry without affection.Are you quite sure that you feel what you ought to do?”