“Miss Crawford? The devil take… Good God! What could I have said that you are thus distressed? Dearest Georgiana… pray…” The Colonel startled himself, as he realised in that moment that Georgiana must have taken her information from his last letters of the month previous! She must, therefore, have been in the most wretched apprehension of his renewing his addresses to Miss Crawford for weeks! Oh! How thoroughly did he regret and repudiate those former sentiments! How abhorrent were those words to him now, which—as he now understood—must have occasioned the most awful sensations of despair and torment to such a trusting, loving heart! Colonel Fitzwilliam had now only to consider himself a great brute and a block-head. It could and should take a life-time of care and tenderness in atonement for his stupidity and unintended cruelty—a penance he was most desirous of securing.

Colonel Fitzwilliam held her hand firmly, and, shaking his head with a very tender smile, he bade her rise and resume their way home. He gently placed Betsey’s hand in Georgiana’s, and taking up the sack in one arm, took her arm in his other, and directed them out of the church-yard. Georgiana suffered herself to be led through the crowds with her head down, hoping that she was not so much a spectacle as to cause the Viscount embarrassment, in addition to the distress that must necessarily accompany his brotherly care for her feelings. Betsey, gratefully, was yet busily engaged in speaking to the sack. Georgiana, without comprehending where she was or even the direction she was bound, thought only of bracing herself—again—for those words which would seal the close of her hopes and happiness. She began to speak, but Fitzwilliam gently raised his finger to his lips, signalling her to be silent, smiling as if they were at play at a child’s game so many years before at Pemberley. She had now nothing with which to resist. She leaned on his arm, tucking her head into his shoulder as she had so often done when she had tired from the running and the games, when the Colonel—as he was then—would read her to sleep. The noise of the city was an indistinguishable hum to her; she closed her eyes, allowing him to guide their motley procession whither he would.