“Lizzy,I bear you no ill-will for being justified in your advice to me last May,which,considering the event,shows some greatness of mind.”
“What,is he coming home,and without poor Lydia?”she cried.“Sure he will not leave London before he has found them.Who is to fight Wickham,and make him marry her,if he comes away?”
It was not till the afternoon,when he joined them at tea,that Elizabeth ventured to introduce the subject; and then, on her briefly expressing her sorrow for what he must have endured,he replied,“Say nothing of that.Who should suffer but myself? It has been my own doing,and I ought to feel it.”
Kitty,who took all these threats in a serious light,began to cry.
Mrs.Gardiner went away in all the perplexity about Elizabeth and her Derbyshire friend that had attended her from that part of the world.His name had never been voluntarily mentioned before them by her niece;and the kind of half-expectation which Mrs. Gardiner had formed, of their being followed by a letter from him,had ended in nothing.Elizabeth had received none since her return that could come from Pemberley.