g, against
every better interest he had outwardly torn himself, now, when no
longer allowable, governed every thought; and the connection, for the
sake of which he had, with little scruple, left her sister to misery,
was likely to prove a source of unhappiness to himself of a far more
incurable nature. From a reverie of this kind she was recalled at the
end of some minutes by Willoughby, who, rousing himself from a reverie
at least equally painful, started up in preparation for going, and
said--

"There is no use in staying here; I must be off."

"Are you going back to town?"

"No--to Combe Magna. I have business there; from thence to town in a
day or two. Good bye."

He held out his hand. She could not refuse to give him hers;--he
pressed it with affection.

"And you DO think something better of me than you did?"--said he,
letting it fall, and leaning against the mantel-piece as if forgetting
he was to go.

Elinor assured him that she did;--that she forgave, pitied, wished him
well--was even interested in his happiness--and added some gentle
counsel as to the behaviour most likely to promote it. His answer was
not very encouraging.

"As to that," said he, "I must rub through the world as well as I can.
Domestic happiness is out of the question. If, however, I am allowed
to think that you and yours feel an interest in my fate and actions, it
may be the means--it may put me on my guard--at least, it may be
something to live for. Marianne to be sure is lost to me for ever.
Were I even by any blessed chance at liberty again--"

Elinor stopped him with a reproof.

"Well,"--he replied--"once more good bye. I shall now go away and live
in dread of one event."

"What do you mean?"

"Your sister's marriage."

"You are very wrong. She can never be more lost to you than she is
now."

"But she will be gained by some one else. And if that some one should
be the very he whom, of all others, I could least bear--but I will not
stay to rob myself of all your compassionate goodwill, by shewing that
where I have most injured I can least forgive. Good bye,--God bless
you!"

And with these words, he almost ran out of the room.

CHAPTER 45

Elinor, for some time after he left her, for some time even after the
sound of his carriage had died away, remained too much oppressed by a
crowd of ideas, widely differing in themselves, but of which sadness
was the general result, to think even of her sister.