The distance from Grosvenor Street to Gracechurch Street was too long for silence to pass for accident.

Miss Bennet sat opposite him, one hand resting upon her reticule, while the motion of the carriage stirred the fringe of her pelisse. Fran kept her eyes lowered, attending without seeming to hear. Her presence preserved them both from any freedom either might afterward have wished unsaid.

At length Darcy said, “I hope you do not find the day too severe for the drive.”

“Not at all, I thank you.”

“The roads are tolerable, considering the season.”

“Yes.”

The civility of it only made the constraint more exact.

He tried again. “I trust your friends in Hertfordshire were well when you left them.”

“They were, when I last heard. My mother does not much admire January, but she bears it as she does most inconveniences — by speaking of them.”

He bowed. “And your father?”

“He prefers winter to many things that are warmer.”

“Your sisters remain all at Longbourn?”

“All but myself.”

“And you have been some weeks in town?”

“Nearly three.”

It occurred to him, with the delayed clearness of a man no longer under Miss Bingley’s immediate management, that the morning had not been the first of her arrangements. Miss Bennet had been in town three weeks; Bingley had never spoken as though he knew it. Her unanswered civilities, his ignorance, Miss Bingley’s smooth reports of indifference — none of them looked accidental now.

There were too many subjects he could not touch.

Against prudence, he said, “And Miss Elizabeth Bennet? Is she still in Hertfordshire?”

Miss Bennet looked up. “She is at Longbourn.”

“I hope she is well.”

“She is very well, I believe.”

Then, with the gentlest caution, she said, “I had not understood that you and my sister were much in each other’s company.”

He felt the necessity of answering plainly. “Miss Elizabeth Bennet is among the most esteemed of my acquaintance.”

Darcy, aware all at once of the maid opposite and of how little space a carriage allowed for imprudence, wished the sentence recalled before it had done with him.

Miss Bennet received it with grave sweetness. Before she answered, there was the smallest pause, as if the words had obliged her to think.

“You do her great honor, sir.”

“It is no more than justice.”

She inclined her head and said nothing more. He had said more than civility required, and could not recall it.

The carriage slowed. Through the glass appeared the narrower order of Gracechurch Street, busy and respectable, with little leisure for display.

“We are arrived,” he said.

Miss Bennet gathered her things. “You have been very obliging, Mr. Darcy.”

He handed her down. Before her foot had fairly reached the step, the door was opened and a servant came out. Miss Bennet entered with Fran behind her; Darcy followed, for to retreat after bringing her thus far would have been affectation.

The hall was warm, with a stand for hats by the door and a carpet chosen for wear. Nothing sought admiration, and he had seldom entered a house that made him more sensible of his own behavior.

Mrs. Gardiner came forward at once.

“My dear Jane—” She paused only long enough to take in her niece’s face and draw her toward the fire. “You have been too long abroad. Sit here. Fran, thank you; that will do very well.”

Miss Bennet said, “My aunt, Mr. Darcy had the goodness to set me down.”

Mrs. Gardiner turned to him with a composed curtsy. “Mr. Darcy, I am much obliged to you.”

He bowed. “Miss Bennet was so kind as to permit the use of my carriage.”

“So I understand.” There was gratitude in her manner, and attention besides it. “Darcy of Pemberley, I think?”

“Yes.”

“Then I know your name by better authority than London gives. I spent some years not very far from Lambton.”

The word brought Derbyshire into the room at once.

“You know it well, then.”

“Very tolerably. My father lived in the neighborhood for a time.”

“Then you know a part of the world I am always glad to hear spoken of.”

Mrs. Gardiner smiled a little. “One is always glad of home, I suppose.”

Before more could pass, another gentleman entered from the back of the house — a man plainly but well dressed, whose eye went first to his niece and then to Darcy, as if arranging the facts of the room in their proper order.

“My love?”

“Jane has returned chilled, but safely. Mr. Darcy was so obliging as to bring her home.”

Mr. Gardiner bowed. “Sir, I am your debtor.”

“I am happy to have been of use.”

Mr. Gardiner looked again at his niece. “Jane, you had better go upstairs for half an hour before dinner is thought of.”

Miss Bennet rose at once. “I am very sorry to give so much trouble.”

“My dear, if you mean to recommend yourself by being easy to nurse, you have succeeded these twenty years already,” said Mrs. Gardiner, and led her toward the door with a hand lightly at her arm.

When they were gone, Mr. Gardiner turned back. “Mr. Darcy, if you can spare me a moment, I should be glad of a word.”

The civility of the request left no refusal. Darcy followed him into the study.

It was a room of ledgers, letters, and a good fire. Nothing in it troubled itself to impress, and therefore very little of it failed to do so. Mr. Gardiner closed the door without ceremony and motioned him toward a chair. Darcy remained standing. After a brief glance, Mr. Gardiner did the same.

“I will not detain you long, sir. You must forgive plainness. My niece has had, of late, more attention paid her than comfort has followed from it. Your escorting her home is a civility for which I am obliged. It is also a civility which, in some circumstances, might bear a meaning I ought not to leave uncertain.”

Darcy answered at once. “You do right to ask. I have the highest respect for Miss Bennet, but no pretension of the kind you mean.”

“I am glad to understand you.”

“If I have exposed her to any misconstruction by my attendance, I regret it. That was not my design.”

“No. I do not suppose it was.” Mr. Gardiner’s voice remained even. “May I then ask what brought you into the business at all?”

A vague answer would have had the look of cowardice.

“I had reason to think that I had been wrong where Miss Bennet was concerned, and that she had suffered by it. When I saw her this morning, I could not leave her to return unattended.”

Mr. Gardiner regarded him steadily. “That is not a complete account.”

“No. But it is a true one.”

For a moment neither spoke.

At length Mr. Gardiner said, “And as to the other part of my question — if your attention is elsewhere, am I to understand that my family is not wholly indifferent to you?”

Darcy had brought himself there. He might as well stand to it.

“I became acquainted in Hertfordshire with the younger Miss Bennet.”

Mr. Gardiner’s brows lifted slightly.

“I would not have this repeated to her,” Darcy said. “I have no claim upon Miss Elizabeth’s notice, and would not engage it by report.”

Mr. Gardiner considered this. “That is a scruple which does you credit, though it places me in some delicacy.”

“I am aware of it.”

“Very well. I shall not speak of it to my niece. I do not make a practice of unsettling young ladies with gentlemen’s unfinished intentions.”

He crossed to the writing table and rested a hand upon it. “You will not think me intrusive if I say that my brother Bennet ought to know what has passed today, and what you have now told me. He is his daughters’ proper guardian, however convenient it may be for the rest of us to love them.”

“I should wish it,” Darcy said.

Mr. Gardiner turned. “You would?”

“Mr. Bennet has every right to be informed.”

Mr. Gardiner looked at him for a moment longer; when he spoke again, some part of his earlier severity had abated.

“Then we understand one another as far as is necessary for the present.” He held out his hand. “I am obliged to you for bringing my niece home.”

Darcy took it. “And I to you for allowing me to speak plainly in return.”

When he was shown out a few minutes later, Mrs. Gardiner had resumed her place in the drawing room. Miss Bennet was gone upstairs. Mrs. Gardiner rose.

“I hope you will permit me again to thank you, Mr. Darcy.”

“The obligation has been mine, madam.”

“You are very civil.” She seemed for an instant as if she might say more, and thought better of it. “I wish you good day.”

He bowed and left Gracechurch Street with the sense that the affair had passed out of his private keeping.

By evening the day had improved neither in weather nor in its opinion of him. The fire burned clear, the lamps were well trimmed, and a servant set port beside him with accustomed silence. Darcy sat long enough without touching the port for the lamps to darken upon the glass.

All that ordered comfort failed him alike.

The door opened softly. Georgiana came in with a sheet of music in her hand.

“I hope I do not disturb you.”

“Not at all.”

She came a little farther into the room and paused. “You are not well today.”

“I am very well.”

She looked at him with quiet doubt. “Something has happened.”

He might have dismissed her with less. He found he had no taste for it.

“I have learned today,” he said, looking at the fire rather than at her, “that I may have done a great wrong to someone I ought not to have wronged.”

Georgiana set the music down upon the table.

“I am sorry for it,” she said after a moment.

“So am I.”

She asked nothing further of the matter.

“Would you rather I left you?” she said.

“No. Stay, if you please.”

She went to the pianoforte and lifted the lid. Presently the room was filled with the careful sweetness of her playing, companionable because it did not attempt to do too much.

Georgiana played. Darcy sat with his port untouched. Somewhere between Gracechurch Street and Longbourn, Mr. Gardiner’s letter had already begun to travel.