Austen Said:

"But have you not received my notes?"

"Here is some mistake I am sure — some dreadful mistake. What can be the meaning of it? Tell me, Willoughby; for heaven's sake tell me, what is the matter?"

"Yes, I had the pleasure of receiving the information of your arrival in town, which you were so good as to send me,"

"Go to him, Elinor,"

"and force him to come to me. Tell him I must see him again — must speak to him instantly. — I cannot rest — I shall not have a moment's peace till this is explained — some dreadful misapprehension or other. — Oh go to him this moment."

"How can that be done? No, my dearest Marianne, you must wait. This is not the place for explanations. Wait only till tomorrow."

he was gone,

would entreat Lady Middleton to take them home, as she was too miserable to stay a minute longer.

some kind of engagement had subsisted between Willoughby and Marianne

Willoughby was weary of it,

for however Marianne might still feed her own wishes, SHE could not attribute such behaviour to mistake or misapprehension of any kind. Nothing but a thorough change of sentiment could account for it.

Absence might have weakened his regard, and convenience might have determined him to overcome it, but that such a regard had formerly existed she could not bring herself to doubt.

while she could

ESTEEM

Edward as much as ever, however they might be divided in future, her mind might be always supported. But every circumstance that could embitter such an evil seemed uniting to heighten the misery of Marianne in a final separation from Willoughby — in an immediate and irreconcilable rupture with him.

"Marianne, may I ask-?"

"No, Elinor,"

"ask nothing; you will soon know all."

not to speak to her for the world.

it must come from Willoughby,

"And have you really, Ma'am, talked yourself into a persuasion of my sister's being engaged to Mr. Willoughby? I thought it had been only a joke, but so serious a question seems to imply more; and I must beg, therefore, that you will not deceive yourself any longer. I do assure you that nothing would surprise me more than to hear of their being going to be married."

"Indeed, Ma'am,"

"you are mistaken. Indeed, you are doing a very unkind thing in spreading the report, and you will find that you have though you will not believe me now."

"Bond Street, January. "MY DEAR MADAM,

"I have just had the honour of receiving your letter, for which I beg to return my sincere acknowledgments. I am much concerned to find there was anything in my behaviour last night that did not meet your approbation; and though I am quite at a loss to discover in what point I could be so unfortunate as to offend you, I entreat your forgiveness of what I can assure you to have been perfectly unintentional. I shall never reflect on my former acquaintance with your family in Devonshire without the most grateful pleasure, and flatter myself it will not be broken by any mistake or misapprehension of my actions. My esteem for your whole family is very sincere; but if I have been so unfortunate as to give rise to a belief of more than I felt, or meant to express, I shall reproach myself for not having been more guarded in my professions of that esteem. That I should ever have meant more you will allow to be impossible, when you understand that my affections have been long engaged elsewhere, and it will not be many weeks, I believe, before this engagement is fulfilled. It is with great regret that I obey your commands in returning the letters with which I have been honoured from you, and the lock of hair, which you so obligingly bestowed on me.

"I am, dear Madam, "Your most obedient "humble servant, "JOHN WILLOUGHBY."

Willoughby capable of departing so far from the appearance of every honourable and delicate feeling — so far from the common decorum of a gentleman, as to send a letter so impudently cruel: a letter which, instead of bringing with his desire of a release any professions of regret, acknowledged no breach of faith, denied all peculiar affection whatever — a letter of which every line was an insult, and which proclaimed its writer to be deep in hardened villainy.

"Poor Elinor! how unhappy I make you!"

"I only wish,"

"there were any thing I COULD do, which might be of comfort to you."

"Oh! Elinor, I am miserable, indeed,"

"Exert yourself, dear Marianne,"

"if you would not kill yourself and all who love you. Think of your mother; think of her misery while YOU suffer: for her sake you must exert yourself."

"I cannot, I cannot,"

"leave me, leave me, if I distress you; leave me, hate me, forget me! but do not torture me so. Oh! how easy for those, who have no sorrow of their own to talk of exertion! Happy, happy Elinor, YOU cannot have an idea of what I suffer."

"Do you call ME happy, Marianne? Ah! if you knew! — And can you believe me to be so, while I see you so wretched!"

"Forgive me, forgive me,"

"I know you feel for me; I know what a heart you have; but yet you are — you must be happy; Edward loves you — what, oh what, can do away such happiness as that?"

"Many, many circumstances,"

"No, no, no,"

"he loves you, and only you. You CAN have no grief."

"I can have no pleasure while I see you in this state."

"And you will never see me otherwise. Mine is a misery which nothing can do away."

"You must not talk so, Marianne. Have you no comforts? no friends? Is your loss such as leaves no opening for consolation? Much as you suffer now, think of what you would have suffered if the discovery of his character had been delayed to a later period — if your engagement had been carried on for months and months, as it might have been, before he chose to put an end to it. Every additional day of unhappy confidence, on your side, would have made the blow more dreadful."

"Engagement!"

"there has been no engagement."

"No engagement!"

"No, he is not so unworthy as you believe him. He has broken no faith with me."

"But he told you that he loved you."

"Yes — no — never absolutely. It was every day implied, but never professedly declared. Sometimes I thought it had been — but it never was."