At Ramsgate, having been sent thither in the charge of a Mrs. Younge for an holiday, Miss Darcy was intercepted by Mr. Wickham. The latter so prevailed on her kind heart and unwillingness to disappoint anyone she loved, that she was convinced he was come for her because he loved her, and soon believed herself in love in return for such appetent sentiments. She esteemed her brother too highly to take such a step without his concurrence, and so sent him word of her joy, with the unsurprising result that he arrived immediately and removed her from Ramsgate. Georgiana could scarcely credit that such villainy could exist, as her brother communicated in his description of Mr. Wickham’s intentions. More awful for Georgiana, however, was the realisation that she had not been loved; he had been after her considerable fortune, and, most likely, the added inducement of revenge against her own brother.

Mr. Darcy did not scruple to disguise his anger at the perpetrator of the offense, or even moderate his expressions of abhorrence of such iniquity in the presence of Georgiana. Not surprisingly, such immoderate language had the unfortunate effect that Georgiana heard only her own failings in his opprobrium, and in the few words they exchanged on the subject, she concluded nothing other than the acutest, irrevocable disappointment in herself. She was abased, abject, and miserable. At such a tender age, to have her virtue and propriety called into question! Such is an heavy burthen for a girl of fifteen: with no experience against which to gauge her error; no knowledge of others, with far more contemptible histories, who had found salvation; and no mother to value her and to say those words of understanding, heal her wounded heart, and put her innocent error in a proper perspective. Georgiana was left alone in her disgrace, and a repentance unrelieved by any information that might have secured a better understanding of her true portion of the offense. And, unaware that her brother had informed only her cousin Fitzwilliam, she had the additional mortification of believing everyone in the world to know the depths of her frailty and imprudence.