"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," throwing her arms round
her sister's neck; "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," said Elinor, solemnly.

"No, no, no," cried Marianne wildly, "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!" cried Marianne, "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."

"Yet you wrote to him?"--

"Yes--could that be wrong after all that had passed?--
But I cannot talk."

Elinor said no more, and turning again to the three
letters which now raised a much stronger curiosity
than before, directly ran over the contents of all.
The first, which was what her sister had sent him
on their arrival in town, was to this effect.

Berkeley Street, January.

"How surprised you will be, Willoughby, on
receiving this; and I think you will feel something
more than surprise, when you know that I am in town.
An opportunity of coming hither, though with Mrs.
Jennings, was a temptation we could not resist.
I wish you may receive this in time to come here
to-night, but I will not depend on it. At any rate
I shall expect you to-morrow. For the present, adieu.

"M.D."

Her second note, which had been written on the morning
after the dance at the Middletons', was in these words:--

"I cannot express my disappointment in having
missed you the day before yesterday, nor my astonishment
at not having received any answer to a note which
I sent you above a week ago. I have been expecting
to hear from you, and still more to see you, every
hour of the day. Pray call again as soon as possible,
and explain the reason of my having expected this
in vain. You had better come earlier another time,
because we are generally out by one. We were last
night at Lady Middleton's, where there was a dance.
I have been told that you were asked to be of the
party. But could it be so? You must be very much
altered indeed since we parted, if that could be
the case, and you not there. But I will not suppose
this possible, and I hope very soon to receive your
personal assurance of its being otherwise.

"M.D."

The contents of her last note to him were these:--

"What am I to imagine, Willoughby, by your
behaviour last night? Again I demand an explanation
of it. I was prepared to meet you with the pleasure
which our separation naturally produced, with the
familiarity which our intimacy at Barton appeared
to me to justify. I was repulsed indeed! I have
passed a wretched night in endeavouring to excuse
a conduct which can scarcely be called less than


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