Page 428 of 817

But when she read and re-read, with the closest attention, the

particulars immediately following of Wickham's resigning all

pretensions to the living, of his receiving in lieu so

considerable a sum as three thousand pounds, again was she forced

to hesitate. She put down the letter, weighed every circumstance

with what she meant to be impartiality--deliberated on the

probability of each statement--but with little success. On both

sides it was only assertion. Again she read on. But every line

proved more clearly that the affair, which she had believed it

impossible that any contrivance could so represent as to render

Mr. Darcy's conduct in it less than infamous, was capable of a

turn which must make him entirely blameless throughout the whole.