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"That same afternoon."

"Your father."

"The afternoon we came home." Her voice is barely above a whisper. "He saw through it in an hour. I could not lie to him."

"No. You could only lie to me."

I hear her breath go out of her as though I have struck her.

I ought to stop. Some part of me knows it. Some part of me, the part that sat in this garden a quarter of an hour ago and said I want to remember this night when I am an old man, is standing a long way off and watching me with horror. I do not listen to it. The pieces are still coming, one after another, falling into place like the tumblers of a lock, and I cannot stop turning the key.

"He told me," I say. "Your father. On the morning I asked for you. He said, whatever you hear of her in the future, I hope you will remember that I told you so. I thought he was being odd. I thought it was his humor."

"He loves me."

"He pitied me." I turn my head and look at her at last. "They all did. Did they not? My cousin. Your father. Mrs. Collins at the window with her handkerchief. Pettigrew, this morning, looking at me as though I had a month to live. Lowe—" I stop. "Did Lowe know?"

"I do not know what Lowe knows." Her face is white in the light from the house. "He knew you had written to me. He saw you ride out. I think he guessed the rest."

"Your green coat is past saving, sir." I almost laugh again. "Yes. I think he did. Anne?"

"Anne never asked. She said she did not wish to know."

"And your sister."

"I told Jane the night we came home."

"So everyone," I say. "Everyone whose good opinion I value. Every one of them has known, for six weeks, and stood about me in sickrooms and drawing rooms and gardens, and watched me make a fool of myself, and said nothing."

"Not to make a fool of you. To keep you safe—"

"I have been walking about Hertfordshire like a man in a play," I say, "telling everyone how happy I am. And the whole audience knew the ending."

She makes a small sound. I do not look at her.

"Wickham," I say.

She goes very still.

"Wickham told me the truth," I say. "In the yard of the Red Lion. She refused you, Darcy. Ask anyone at Hunsford. The one time in his whole worthless life that George Wickham told me the truth, and I laughed in his face."

"Fitzwilliam—"

"I told him you would never. I told him he did not know you. I told him you cried buckets." The word comes out of me like something torn. "And then I rode here and told you what he had said, laughing, and you went white, and I thought you were afraid of him."

"I tried to tell you," she whispers. "That day. In this garden. I said your name, and you—"

"I kissed your hands." I remember it. Every detail. Her cold fingers. The apple blossom. "I said hush. I said no excitements, Pettigrew's orders. I said you do not need to say anything to me, not ever. I know you."

"You did."

"I said I know you."

She does not answer. There is nothing to answer.

***

She has slid off my lap. She is sitting on the very edge of the stone seat, with my coat still round her shoulders and her hair coming down, and her face is wet.