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"And now you do."

"And now I do."

She looks down at the letter again. I wait for it. The anger. The sharp, bright, cutting voice I know so well from Netherfield, from Rosings, the voice that took Miss Bingley apart over the card table without once raising itself above a murmur. I deserve every syllable. I have braced myself for it since dawn.

It does not come.

Instead, she reaches out, without looking up, and takes my hand.

She does not hold it the way she held it at my bedside, lightly, as if it might break. She takes it in both of hers, hard, and lifts it, and presses the back of it against her cheek. Her cheek is wet.

I cannot breathe.

"Elizabeth," I say. It comes out of me before I can stop it.

Her eyes close.

"You did not have to tell me," she says against my knuckles. "You could have written to him and never said a word. I should never have known."

"I should have known."

She makes a sound that is half a laugh and half a sob. Over by the window, I hear Mrs. Collins's sewing go still.

"You are not angry," I say, bewildered. "Why are you not angry?"

She opens her eyes and looks at me. I have never seen a look like it. It goes right through me and out the other side, and leaves something behind that I will not be able to dislodge if I live to be ninety.

"Because you saw it," she says. "By yourself. Without anyone telling you. That is—" Her voice breaks. "That is everything I ever—"

She stops.

She lets go of my hand. She gives me back the letter, pressing it into my fingers. She takes one step back, and then another.

"Send it," she says. "Today. Please."

"I will. Miss Bennet—Elizabeth—what is it? What have I said?"

"Nothing. You have said nothing wrong. You have said everything—" She presses her hand to her mouth. "Forgive me. I must—I shall be back directly."

And she turns, and goes quickly out of the room, and I hear her footsteps go fast along the corridor and stop at the far end, by the window that looks out over the park.

I stand there with the letter in my hand.

Mrs. Collins has put down her sewing. She is looking at the door Elizabeth went out by, and her face is full of something very like grief.

"Mrs. Collins," I say. "Have I done something wrong?"

She turns and looks at me for a long moment.

"No, Mr. Darcy," she says quietly. "I think you have done something very right. I think that is what she cannot bear."

I do not understand her. I look at the empty doorway.

She has gone out so that I will not see her cry. I know that much, at least. What I do not understand, and what I stand there turning over and over while the clock ticks and Mrs. Collins sews and the soft gray morning goes on outside the window, is why she should be crying because I have finally done something good.

Chapter Eleven — Elizabeth

Lizzy, Mr. Bingley called today. He says Mr. Darcy sent him!