“Very willingly, Aunt Hallendale. I cannot promise success, but I will do what I am able, to induce him to act as you wish. Gardiner, anything else you require?” Darcy asked with a smile, and a bow to his aunt.

“No, Darcy. We have done. I leave you to attend to your dinner. Pray, remember Mrs. Gardiner and myself to your wife and sister, and beg they will visit us as soon as they are come home.”

CHAP. 18.

MRS. AND MISS DARCY arrived at the door of the London residence at Park Lane late in the evening on the ninth of September. Georgiana had, by this time, been so long over-wrought as to be in a state of complete exhaustion, and so excused herself and went to her own apartments immediately upon receiving her brother’s assurances that the Hallendale family were as well as could be expected at such a time, and that Lord Hallendale’s health had not been injured. As soon as she had left the room, Mr. Darcy commented on her pale complexion, and her being remarkably thinner than when he had last seen her.

“Is my sister unwell? I have rarely seen her so distressed, certainly not since that deplorable—well, that is nothing now to the point. Was there some mischance on the road home, Elizabeth? I am shocked by her appearance!”