every fresh circumstance in favour of Lucy's veracity;
"I remember he told us, that he had been staying
a fortnight with some friends near Plymouth."
She remembered too, her own surprise at the time,
at his mentioning nothing farther of those friends,
at his total silence with respect even to their names.

"Did not you think him sadly out of spirits?"
repeated Lucy.

"We did, indeed, particularly so when he first arrived."

"I begged him to exert himself for fear you
should suspect what was the matter; but it made him
so melancholy, not being able to stay more than a
fortnight with us, and seeing me so much affected.--
Poor fellow!--I am afraid it is just the same with him now;
for he writes in wretched spirits. I heard from him just
before I left Exeter;" taking a letter from her pocket
and carelessly showing the direction to Elinor.
"You know his hand, I dare say, a charming one it is;
but that is not written so well as usual.--He was tired,
I dare say, for he had just filled the sheet to me as full
as possible."

Elinor saw that it WAS his hand, and she could doubt
no longer. This picture, she had allowed herself to believe,
might have been accidentally obtained; it might not have
been Edward's gift; but a correspondence between them
by letter, could subsist only under a positive engagement,
could be authorised by nothing else; for a few moments, she
was almost overcome--her heart sunk within her, and she could
hardly stand; but exertion was indispensably necessary;
and she struggled so resolutely against the oppression
of her feelings, that her success was speedy, and for
the time complete.

"Writing to each other," said Lucy, returning the
letter into her pocket, "is the only comfort we have
in such long separations. Yes, I have one other comfort
in his picture, but poor Edward has not even THAT.
If he had but my picture, he says he should be easy.
I gave him a lock of my hair set in a ring when he was at
Longstaple last, and that was some comfort to him, he said,
but not equal to a picture. Perhaps you might notice
the ring when you saw him?"

"I did," said Elinor, with a composure of voice,
under which was concealed an emotion and distress beyond
any thing she had ever felt before. She was mortified,
shocked, confounded.

Fortunately for her, they had now reached the cottage,
and the conversation could be continued no farther.
After sitting with them a few minutes, the Miss Steeles
returned to the Park, and Elinor was then at liberty
to think and be wretched.





[At this point in the first and second editions, Volume 1 ends.]





CHAPTER 23


However small Elinor's general dependence on
Lucy's veracity might be, it was impossible for her
on serious reflection to suspect it in the present case,
where no temptation could be answerable to the folly
of inventing a falsehood of such a description. What Lucy
had asserted to be true, therefore, Elinor could not,
dared not longer doubt; supported as it was too on every
side by such probabilities and proofs, and contradicted
by nothing but her own wishes. Their opportunity of
acquaintance in the house of Mr. Pratt was a foundation
for the rest, at once indisputable and alarming; and Edward's
visit near Plymouth, his melancholy state of mind,
his dissatisfaction at his own prospects, his uncertain
behaviour towards herself, the intimate knowledge of the
Miss Steeles as to Norland and their family connections,
which had often surprised her, the picture, the letter,
the ring, formed altogether such a body of evidence,
as overcame every fear of condemning him unfairly,
and established as a fact, which no partiality could
set aside, his ill-treatment of herself.--Her resentment
of such behaviour, her indignation at having been its dupe,
for a short time made her feel only for herself;
but other ideas, other considerations, soon arose.
Had Edward been intentionally deceiving her? Had he feigned
a regard for her which he did not feel? Was his engagement
to Lucy an engagement of the heart? No; whatever it might
once have been, she could not believe it such at present.
His affection was all her own. She could not be deceived
in that. Her mother, sisters, Fanny, all had been


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