Damn You, Willoughby

"There, exactly there," - pointing with one hand, "on that projecting mound, - there I fell; and there I first saw Willoughby." 

Her voice sunk with the word, but presently reviving she added, 

"I am thankful to find that I can look with so little pain on the spot! Shall we ever talk on that subject, Elinor?" hesitatingly it was said. "or will it be wrong? I can talk of it now, I hope, as I ought to do." 

Elinor tenderly invited her to be open.

"As for regret," said Marianne, "I have done with that, as far as he is concerned. I do not mean to talk to you of what my feelings have been for him, but what they are now."

"How then," asked her sister, "would you account for his behavior?"

"I would suppose him - Oh, how gladly I would suppose him! - only fickle, very, very fickle."

She trembled, her eyes were fixed on the ground, and her lips whiter than even sickness had left them. A thousand inquiries sprung up from her heart, but she dared not urge one. She caught every syllable with panting eagerness; her hand, unknowingly to herself, closely pressed her sister's, and tears covered her cheeks.

Elinor now found the difference between the expectation of an unpleasant event, however certain the mind may be told to consider it, and certainty itself. She now found, that in spite of herself, she had always admitted a hope, while Edward remained single, that something would occur to prevent his marrying Lucy; that some resolution of his own, some meditation of his friends, or some more eligible opportunity of establishment for the lady, would arise to assist the happiness of all. But he was now married; and she condemned her heart for the lurking flatter, which so much heightened the pain of the intelligence. What had Edward felt on being within four miles from Barton, on seeing her mother's servant, on hearing Lucy's message! They would soon, she supposed, be settled at Delaford; - Delaford, - that place in which so  much conspired to give her interest; which she wished to be acquainted with, and yet desired to avoid. In Edward, she knew not what she saw, nor what she wished to see. Happy or unhappy, nothing pleased her; she turned away her head from every sketch of him.

Were it possible, she must say it must be Edward. She looked again. He had just dismounted; - she could not be mistaken, - it was Edward. She moved away and sat down. "He comes from Mr. Pratt's purposely to see us. I will be calm, I will be mistress of myself." ... He colored and stammered out an unintelligible reply. Elinor's lips had moved with her mother's, and, when the moment of action was over, she wished that she had shaken hands with him too. But it was then too late, and with a countenance meaning to be open, she sat down again and talked of the weather. When Elinor has ceased to rejoice in the dryness of the season, a very awful pause took place. It was put an end to by Mrs. Dashwood, who felt obliged to hope that he had left Mrs. Ferrars very well. In a hurried manner, he replied in the affirmative. Another pause. Elinor, resolving to exert herself, though fearing the sound of her own voice, now said - "Is Mrs. Ferrars at Longstaple?" ... "Perhaps you mean - my brother - you mean Mrs. - Mrs. Robert Ferrars."

Elinor could sit no longer. She almost ran out of the room, and as soon as the door was closed, burst into tears of joy, which at first she thought would never cease. Edward, who had till then looked anywhere, rather than at her, saw her hurry away, and perhaps saw, or even heard, her emotion; for immediately afterwards he fell into a reverie, which no remarks, no inquiries, no affectionate address of Mrs. Dashwood would penetrate, and at last, without saying a word, quitted the room, and walked out towards the village, leaving the others in the greatest astonishment and perplexity on a change in his situation, so wonderful and so sudden, - a perplexity which they had no means of lessening but by their own conjectures.

On Willoughby:

For Marriane, however, in spite of his incivility in surviving her loss, he always retained that decided regard which interested him in everything that befell her, and made her his secret standard of perfection in woman; and many a rising beauty would be slighted by him in after-days as bearing no comparison with Mrs. Brandon.