第118章[第2页/共5页]

Their visitors were not to remain above ten days with them.Mr. Wickham had received his commission before he left London, and he was to join his regiment at the end of a fortnight.

“Oh!certainly,”said Elizabeth,though burning with curiosity;“we will ask you no questions.”

On such encouragement to ask,Elizabeth was forced to put it out of her power,by running away.

“La!You are so strange!But I must tell you how it went off.We were married, you know, at St. Clement's, because Wickham's lodgings were in that parish.And it was settled that we should all be there by eleven o'clock.My uncle and aunt and I were to go together;and the others were to meet us at the church.

“Not that I shall,though,”she added to herself,as she finished the letter;“and my dear aunt,if you do not tell me in an honourable manner,I shall certainly be reduced to tricks and stratagems to find it out.”

Wickham's affection for Lydia was just what Elizabeth had expected to find it;not equal to Lydia's for him.She had scarcely needed her present observation to be satisfied,from the reason of things,that their elopement had been brought on by the strength of her love,rather than by his;and she would have wondered why, without violently caring for her,he chose to elope with her at all, had she not felt certain that his flight was rendered necessary by distress of circumstances; and if that were the case, he was not the young man to resist an opportunity of having a companion.