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"Lizzy," she says.

I know that tone. It is the tone she used when we were girls and I wanted to jump the Lucases' ha-ha on a pony far too small for it.

"I know," I say.

"I do not think you do. Sit down."

I sit.

"Mr. Pettigrew told you not to contradict him," Charlotte says. "He did not tell you to walk in the shrubbery with him. He did not tell you to fall in love with him. And he did not tell you what will happen when this is over."

"I shall tell him. In a week. As soon as Mr. Pettigrew allows it."

"Will you?"

"Of course I will."

"And what will you tell him?"

I open my mouth. Nothing comes.

"You see," says Charlotte. "You have not thought about it. You have thought about the walks and the lilac and whatever happened in the shrubbery that sent Mr. Collins backward into a hedge. You have not thought about the morning after." She folds her hands. "Lizzy. When he remembers, he will remember everything."

The clock ticks.

"Not only the parlor," she says, more gently. "Not only what you said to him on Thursday. He will remember the letter, and sitting up all night to write it. He will remember the ride. And then he will lay it all beside the last fortnight, and he will see that you knew. Every morning on those walks, while he told you about his mother and his sister and his trout. You knew all of it. And you let him talk."

"Because Mr. Pettigrew said—"

"I know why. I am not blaming you. I am telling you what he will see." She leans forward. "He is a proud man, Lizzy. You have told me so yourself a hundred times. What do you suppose a proud man will feel, when he finds that the woman he has been pouring his heart out to has been humoring him like an invalid?"

I cannot answer.

"And that she let him tell her she was the handsomest woman in every room," Charlotte says softly. "And let him tuck back her curl. And let him ask whether it was yet."

My head comes up. "How do you know he asked that?"

Charlotte looks at me with enormous patience. "Lizzy. You have been saying the word yet in your sleep."

I put my face in my hands.

"He did not kiss me," I say through my fingers.

"No," says Charlotte. "Not yet."

I make a sound I have not made since I was nine years old. Charlotte, the wretch, laughs. Then she comes and sits beside me and puts her arm round me again, as she did a week ago, and holds on.

"I do not say it to frighten you," she says into my hair. "I say it because nobody else will. The Colonel is too kind and Mr. Pettigrew is too anxious and Miss de Bourgh, bless her, is too delighted. Somebody must tell you that it is going to hurt. Better it is me."

"I know," I whisper.

"And it will hurt him more."

"I know that too."

She holds me a moment longer. Then she lets go and stands, and picks up her candle.

"Go to bed," she says. "Or at least go upstairs and lie in it. I do not expect you to sleep."