Pagina 687 de 817

The contents of this letter threw Elizabeth into a flutter of

spirits, in which it was difficult to determine whether pleasure

or pain bore the greatest share. The vague and unsettled

suspicions which uncertainty had produced, of what Mr. Darcy

might have been doing to forward her sister's match--which she

had feared to encourage, as an exertion of goodness too great to

be probable, and at the same time dreaded to be just, from the

pain of obligation--were proved beyond their greatest extent to

be true! He had followed them purposely to town, he had taken on

himself all the trouble and mortification attendant on such a

research; in which supplication had been necessary to a woman

whom he must abominate and despise, and where he was reduced to

meet, frequently meet, reason with, persuade, and finally bribe

the man whom he always most wished to avoid, and whose very name

it was punishment to him to pronounce. He had done all this for a

girl whom he could neither regard nor esteem.