I have been kinder than towards myself."

Elizabeth disdained the appearance of noticing this civil
reflection, but its meaning did not escape, nor was it likely to
conciliate her.

"But it is not merely this affair," she continued, "on which my
dislike is founded. Long before it had taken place my opinion
of you was decided. Your character was unfolded in the recital
which I received many months ago from Mr. Wickham. On this
subject, what can you have to say? In what imaginary act
of friendship can you here defend yourself? or under what
misrepresentation can you here impose upon others?"

"You take an eager interest in that gentleman's concerns," said
Darcy, in a less tranquil tone, and with a heightened colour.

"Who that knows what his misfortunes have been, can help
feeling an interest in him?"

"His misfortunes!" repeated Darcy contemptuously; "yes, his
misfortunes have been great indeed."

"And of your infliction," cried Elizabeth with energy. "You
have reduced him to his present state of poverty--comparative
poverty. You have withheld the advantages which you must
know to have been designed for him. You have deprived the
best years of his life of that independence which was no less his
due than his desert. You have done all this! and yet you can
treat the mention of his misfortune with contempt and ridicule."

"And this," cried Darcy, as he walked with quick steps across
the room, "is your opinion of me! This is the estimation in
which you hold me! I thank you for explaining it so fully. My
faults, according to this calculation, are heavy indeed! But
perhaps," added he, stopping in his walk, and turning towards
her, "these offenses might have been overlooked, had not your
pride been hurt by my honest confession of the scruples that had
long prevented my forming any serious design. These bitter
accusations might have been suppressed, had I, with greater
policy, concealed my struggles, and flattered you into the belief
of my being impelled by unqualified, unalloyed inclination; by
reason, by reflection, by everything. But disguise of every sort
is my abhorrence. Nor am I ashamed of the feelings I related.
They were natural and just. Could you expect me to rejoice in
the inferiority of your connections?--to congratulate myself on
the hope of relations, whose condition in life is so decidedly
beneath my own?"

Elizabeth felt herself growing more angry every moment; yet she
tried to the utmost to speak with composure when she said:

"You are mistaken, Mr. Darcy, if you suppose that the mode of
your declaration affected me in any other way, than as it spared
the concern which I might have felt in refusing you, had you
behaved in a more gentlemanlike manner."

She saw him start at this, but he said nothing, and she continued:

"You could not have made the offer of your hand in any possible
way that would have tempted me to accept it."

Again his astonishment was obvious; and he looked at her with
an expression of mingled incredulity and mortification. She went
on:

"From the very beginning--from the first moment, I may almost
say--of my acquaintance with you, your manners, impressing me
with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your
selfish disdain of the feelings of others, were such as to form the
groundwork of disapprobation on which succeeding events have
built so immovable a dislike; and I had not known you a month
before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I
could ever be prevailed on to marry."

"You have said quite enough, madam. I perfectly comprehend
your feelings, and have now only to be ashamed of what my own
have been. Forgive me for having taken up so much of your
time, and accept my best wishes for your health and happiness."

And with these words he hastily left the room, and Elizabeth
heard him the next moment open the front door and quit the
house.

The tumult of her mind, was now painfully great. She knew not
how to support herself, and from actual weakness sat down and
cried for half-an-hour. Her astonishment, as she reflected on
what had passed, was increased by every review of it. That she
should receive an offer of marriage from Mr. Darcy! That he
should have been in love with her for so many months! So much
in love as to wish to marry her in spite of all the objections
which had made him prevent his friend's marrying her sister,
and which must appear at least with equal force in his own
case--was almost incredible! It was gratifying to have inspired
unconsciously so strong an affection. But his pride, his
abominable pride--his shameless avowal of what he had done with
respect to Jane--his unpardonable assurance in acknowledging,
though he could not justify it, and the unfeeling manner in
which he had mentioned Mr. Wickham, his cruelty towards whom
he had not attempted to deny, soon overcame the pity which the


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