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Pride & Prejudice – page 509

Pride and Prejudice

to any sense of shame at her eloping and living with

Wickham a fortnight before they took place.

Elizabeth was now most heartily sorry that she had,

from the distress of the moment, been led to make

Mr. Darcy acquainted with their fears for her sister; for

since her marriage would so shortly give the proper

termination to the elopement, they might hope to

conceal its unfavourable beginning from all those who

were not immediately on the spot.

She had no fear of its spreading farther through

his means. There were few people on whose secrecy

she would have more confidently depended; but, at the

same time, there was no one whose knowledge of a

sister’s frailty would have mortified her so muchnot,

however, from any fear of disadvantage from it individ-

ually to herself, for, at any rate, there seemed a gulf

impassable between them. Had Lydia’s marriage been

concluded on the most honourable terms, it was not to

be supposed that Mr. Darcy would connect himself with

a family where, to every other objection, would now be

added an alliance and relationship of the nearest kind

with a man whom he so justly scorned. From such a

connection she could not wonder that he would shrink.

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