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"Yes."

"I have changed my mind. I have been kissed now. I am in a position to say." He draws a long, shaking breath. "It is the greatest excitement of my life. Pettigrew must never be told."

I laugh. It comes out half a sob, against his mouth. He kisses that too.

***

We sit on the grass for a long time after.

He has fetched my bonnet out of the gorse, and scratched his hands doing it, and handed it back to me with a bow so grave and correct that I had to laugh again. Now it lies forgotten beside me, and I lean against his shoulder, and he has his arm round me, and neither of us says very much.

There are forget-me-nots growing in the grass at the edge of the path, where a little spring comes down. I pick a sprig of them. I do not know why. My hands want something to do that is not touching him, because if I go on touching him I will never be able to stop.

"What are those?" he asks.

"Forget-me-nots."

He laughs softly. "Very appropriate. For a man who mislays his Thursdays."

I turn the little blue flowers over in my fingers. Then, before I can think better of it, I lean across and pin them through the buttonhole of his coat, with the pin from my own collar, and smooth the lapel down flat over them.

He looks down at them. Then at me.

"There," I say. My voice is not quite steady. "Now you shall not forget this one."

"I shall not forget it," he says, "if I live to be a hundred, and fall off every horse in Derbyshire."

He means it. I can see that he means it. And I put my head back on his shoulder so that he will not see my face.

Because I have made up my mind.

I made it up somewhere between the first kiss and the second, without quite knowing I was doing it. I cannot go on like this. I cannot kiss him like that, with my whole heart, and let him go on believing in a woman I made up. It is not fair to him. It is not fair to me. It is not fair to whatever this is, that has grown up between us on the walks at Rosings and in the carriage and on this hill, and is so much better and truer than anything I invented.

The moment Mr. Pettigrew comes into Hertfordshire, and looks into his eyes, and says that he may bear it, I will tell him. All of it. Hunsford, and the letter, and the lane, and the sickroom, and the green worsted that never fell, and the words I gave him that he never said.

And then he will do what he will do. And I will bear it.

"You are very quiet," he says into my hair.

"I am happy."

It is true. That is the dreadful thing. It is entirely true.

***

We walk down the hill in the late afternoon, slowly, with my hand in his. Not on his arm, where it ought to be. In his hand, our fingers laced together, our gloves off, which is entirely improper, and which neither of us mentions.

The stile comes into view at the bottom of the hill. Anne and Kitty are sitting on it, side by side, with their backs to the slope and their heads bent together, watching a field of cows with the most tremendous and unwavering attention. Neither of them turns round.

"Your sister," says Mr. Darcy, "has become very fond of cows."

"Anne has taught her."

"Anne has become very fond of a great many things."

We are almost at the bottom. In a moment we will have to let go of each other's hands, and put on our gloves, and be proper. I find I do not want to. I find I want to stay on this hill for the rest of my life.

He stops walking.