She released a sob and dropped her head to her hands, covering her face. Darcy immediately crossed in front of her and rubbed both her shoulders under his large hands while she shook from the strength of her weeping.

“Dearest, please.” He tried to press a handkerchief into her hands but she would not remove them from her face. Finally, feeling desperate and seeing no one about, her pulled her stiffly into his arms and rubbed her back, pressing her head onto his shoulder.

Finally, her sobs relented and she said, “How can you hold me like this? Do you not despise me, and rightly so?”

“Despise you? Why on earth would I despise you?”

“I believed him! I wanted to believe him, to satisfy my own wounded pride. I could not have been more blind!” she cried wretchedly.

He continued to console her, not knowing what to say and not fully understanding her. “Mr. Wickham is a practiced liar. Even my own excellent father believed him. You are not to blame, dearest. He has deceived many before and I fear he will continue to do so wherever he goes. It is his way.”

She sobbed again, feeling more horrible by his defense of her. “Fitzwilliam, why are you not angry with me?” She looked at him incredulously and began pacing in front of him. “I was so angry with you, with your ridiculous comment! I thought I did not care; I thought the opinion of a strange man should not bother me, but clearly, I have not known myself. Had I been in love I could not have been more blind. But vanity has been my folly! Oh, how vain I have been! How willfully I misunderstood you from the start.”

She continued pacing frantically, speaking to him but seemingly speaking to no one and he wondered if she had forgotten his presence.

“The things I said! I supported him! I agreed with him! I thought you proud and disagreeable, and he charming and amiable. Foolish girl!”

“Elizabeth.” She did not look up. “Elizabeth!” He had her attention. “Am I to understand that you believed Wickham because you disliked me early in our acquaintance, due to a comment I made?”

She stood stock still and pale, looking at his serious countenance and rigid posture. She could not but nod pathetically, her face tear streaked and her eyes wide and sad.

“May I ask what comment it was that set you so against me?” he asked carefully. He was terribly afraid he knew the answer, but he needed to be sure. Little did he know how prideful his features appeared at that moment, how unbending his voice sounded.

“‘She is tolerable I suppose, but not handsome enough to tempt me.’”

He closed his eyes as she spoke.