Sense and Sensibility

My journey to town--travelling with my own horses,
and therefore so tediously--no creature to speak to--my
own reflections so cheerful--when I looked forward
every thing so inviting!--when I looked back at Barton,
the picture so soothing!--oh, it was a blessed journey!"

He stopped.

"Well, sir," said Elinor, who, though pitying him,
grew impatient for his departure, "and this is all?"

"Ah!--no,--have you forgot what passed in town?--
That infamous letter--Did she shew it you?"

"Yes, I saw every note that passed."

"When the first of hers reached me (as it immediately did,
for I was in town the whole time,) what I felt is--
in the common phrase, not to be expressed; in a more
simple one--perhaps too simple to raise any emotion--
my feelings were very, very painful.--Every line, every word
was--in the hackneyed metaphor which their dear writer,
were she here, would forbid--a dagger to my heart.
To know that Marianne was in town was--in the same language--
a thunderbolt.--Thunderbolts and daggers!--what a reproof
would she have given me!--her taste, her opinions--I believe
they are better known to me than my own,--and I am sure
they are dearer."

Elinor's heart, which had undergone many changes
in the course of this extraordinary conversation,
was now softened again;--yet she felt it her duty to check
such ideas in her companion as the last.

"This is not right, Mr. Willoughby.--Remember that
you are married.  Relate only what in your conscience
you think necessary for me to hear."

"Marianne's note, by assuring me that I was still
as dear to her as in former days, that in spite of the many,
many weeks we had been separated, she was as constant
in her own feelings, and as full of faith in the constancy
of mine as ever, awakened all my remorse.  I say awakened,
because time and London, business and dissipation,
had in some measure quieted it, and I had been growing
a fine hardened villain, fancying myself indifferent to her,
and chusing to fancy that she too must have become
indifferent to me; talking to myself of our past attachment
as a mere idle, trifling business, shrugging up my shoulders
in proof of its being so, and silencing every reproach,
overcoming every scruple, by secretly saying now and then,
'I shall be heartily glad to hear she is well married.'--
But this note made me know myself better.  I felt that
she was infinitely dearer to me than any other woman
in the world, and that I was using her infamously.
But every thing was then just settled between Miss Grey
and me.  To retreat was impossible.  All that I had to do,
was to avoid you both.  I sent no answer to Marianne,
intending by that to preserve myself from her farther notice;
and for some time I was even determined not to call in
Berkeley Street;--but at last, judging it wiser to affect
the air of a cool, common acquaintance than anything else,
I watched you all safely out of the house one morning,
and left my name."

"Watched us out of the house!"

"Even so.  You would be surprised to hear how often
I watched you, how often I was on the point of falling
in with you.  I have entered many a shop to avoid your sight,
as the carriage drove by.  Lodging as I did in Bond Street,
there was hardly a day in which I did not catch a glimpse
of one or other of you; and nothing but the most constant
watchfulness on my side, a most invariably prevailing
desire to keep out of your sight, could have separated us
so long.  I avoided the Middletons as much as possible,
as well as everybody else who was likely to prove
an acquaintance in common.  Not aware of their being
in town, however, I blundered on Sir John, I believe,
the first day of his coming, and the day after I had called
at Mrs. Jennings's.  He asked me to a party, a dance at his
house in the evening.--Had he NOT told me as an inducement
that you and your sister were to be there, I should have
felt it too certain a thing, to trust myself near him.
The next morning brought another short note from Marianne--
still affectionate, open, artless, confiding--everything
that could make MY conduct most hateful.  I could not
answer it.  I tried--but could not frame a sentence.
But I thought of her, I believe, every moment of the day.
If you CAN pity me, Miss Dashwood, pity my situation as it
was THEN.  With my head and heart full of your sister,
I was forced to play the happy lover to another woman!--Those
three or four weeks were worse than all.  Well, at last,
as I need not tell you, you were forced on me; and what a
sweet figure I cut!--what an evening of agony it was!--
Marianne, beautiful as an angel on one side, calling me
Willoughby in such a tone!--Oh, God!--holding out her hand
to me, asking me for an explanation, with those bewitching
eyes fixed in such speaking solicitude on my face!--and
Sophia, jealous as the devil on the other hand, looking