第115章[第1頁/共3頁]

What a triumph for him,as she often thought,could he know that the proposals which she had proudly spurned only four months ago, would now have been most gladly and gratefully received! He was as generous, she doubted not, as the most generous of his sex; but while he was mortal, there must be a triumph.

Elizabeth was now most heartily sorry that she had,from the distress of the moment,been led to make Mr.Darcy acquainted with their fears for her sister; for since her marriage would so shortly give the proper termination to the elopement,they might hope to conceal its unfavourable beginning from all those who were not immediately on the spot.

How Wickham and Lydia were to be supported in tolerable independence,she could not imagine.But how little of permanent happiness could belong to a couple who were only brought together because their passions were stronger than their virtue, she could easily conjecture.

She had no fear of its spreading farther through his means. There were few people on whose secrecy she would have more confidently depended; but, at the same time, there was no one whose knowledge of a sister's frailty would have mortified her so much―not, however, from any fear of disadvantage from it individually to herself, for, at any rate, there seemed a gulf impassable between them.Had Lydia's marriage been concluded on the most honourable terms,it was not to be supposed that Mr. Darcy would connect himself with a family,where to every other objection,would now be added an alliance and relationship of the nearest kind with the man whom he so justly scorned.