Page 207 of A Question of Character

“Our father loved you very dearly.”

“I know.”

“He would grieve that someone sought to deceive you.”

“I deceived you.”

He had no answer prepared for that.

“You made a grievous mistake,” he said after a long pause. “You compounded it by remaining silent. Those things are true. They are not the whole truth.”

She did not reply.

“You are also my sister.”

Still nothing.

“And nothing that has happened today alters that.”

A sob escaped before she mastered it.

“I am so tired.”

“Then try to sleep.”

“I do not think I can.”

“I shall be here when morning comes.”

Her answer drifted through the door scarcely loud enough to hear.

“I believe you.”

Darcy took up his chair after several minutes had passed without another sound from within.

Wickham looked up.

“Is she calmer?”

“I cannot tell.”

“I think she will remember that you remained.”

Darcy gave a weary shake of his head.

“I fear she will remember everything else.”

The first grey light of dawn crept beneath the curtains before anyone in the passage stirred again.

Darcy had not slept.

His neck ached from the chair, and his boots were stiff with dried mud from the previous day’s ride. Across from him Wickham blinked awake, straightened slowly, and rubbed one shoulder where it had rested awkwardly against the wall.

“I have known more comfortable lodgings,” he observed.

Despite everything, Darcy came close to smiling.

“As have I.”