Page 212 of A Question of Character

“I... I do not know.”

“You never asked.”

“No.”

“Because you preferred not to hear the answer.”

She lowered herself suddenly into the nearest chair as though her strength had abandoned her.

“I did not think him so heartless.”

Darcy regarded her steadily.

“Yet you thought me sufficiently heartless to abandon my sister.”

Tears sprang into her eyes.

“I was wrong.”

“You were.”

“I believed...” She pressed trembling fingers against her brow. “She spoke so often of how alone she was, how frightened of London she was. How every plan for her life had already been decided. George listened to her. He praised her judgment. He treated her as a woman rather than a child.”

“And you encouraged the comparison.”

“Yes.”

She whispered the word.

“I did.”

The room grew still.

At length Darcy spoke again, though the fury which had animated his earlier questions had cooled into something harder.

“Did you know the terms of my father’s will?”

Mrs. Younge looked up.

“The marriage settlement?”

“Yes.”

“I knew guardians must consent.”

“And Mr. Wycombe?”

A long pause followed.

“Yes.”

Darcy’s fingers tightened upon the arm of his chair.

“He knew before he persuaded my sister to leave.”

“He believed...” She swallowed. “He believed Miss Darcy’s distress would compel you to relent afterward.”

“Or that a completed marriage would leave me no alternative.”