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Darcy kept his hand upon the gate until he trusted his voice. “I do not visit her to satisfy my conscience.”

“I never meant that you did.”

“I would do anything which could secure her happiness.”

“Then consider this as one of the things which might.”

He raised his eyes. She was no longer attempting to make the argument light, and he was grateful, though her seriousness made it harder to evade.

“A household cannot always remain as its master arranges it today,” he said. “No wife of mine would willingly accept such a child established beside her own.”

Elizabeth regarded him in silence.

He heard the absolute assertion as she must have heard it. He had not consulted any woman upon the subject. He had imagined Lady Catherine’s indignation and called it the judgment of the world.

“Then you would have to choose your wife with care,” Elizabeth said.

“I do not intend to marry.”

“Why should a wife matter, then?”

He had no answer.

“You cannot deny Anna a home because a woman you mean never to marry might object to her.”

“It is not so simple.”

“I believe you. But that particular difficulty appears to be one you have made for yourself.”

Darcy looked toward the cottage again. Its door had closed. Ruth would be putting Anna down to sleep, and Martha would return to the mending while Thomas considered where best to place his shelf. All of them had occupations which Anna’s presence interrupted. None had asked him to remove the interruption.

“My sister trusted me,” he said.

Elizabeth became very still.

He had not intended to speak of Georgiana. Now that he had begun, he could not quite stop.

“I was older. I believed that must make my judgment better. I thought if I allowed nothing to escape my notice, I could preserve her from whatever threatened her. After Ramsgate, there was always one more precaution. One more thing which must be settled before she could be at ease.”

He could not say again that she had asked to come home. Elizabeth knew it. To repeat the words would be to hear his own answer a second time.

“I will not expose her daughter to harm merely because I wish to have her near me.”

“Nor should you.” Elizabeth waited until he looked at her. “But is keeping her away the only means you can imagine of doing her good?”

The question was gentler than the others. He wished she had asked it first. He doubted he would have listened if she had.

“You cannot mean to be miserable for the rest of your life,” she said.

“I cannot choose not to grieve.”

“I did not ask you to forget your sister.” Her voice trembled a little. “I have Jane here, and still I miss the others. Even when I am laughing at them. Especially then, perhaps, for they ought to be present to defend themselves. I am very willing to be thought clever, Mr. Darcy, but I should be a poor creature without my family.”

He looked at her and thought of the little flowers sewn upon a gown her own mother had preserved. She had given Anna a piece of that family before she knew the child belonged to his.

“You still have family,” Elizabeth continued. “She is asleep in that cottage. I cannot tell you how to bring her here, or when. I would not take her from the people she loves without considering what that would cost her. But she deserves all the affection you can give her. The world is cross enough without our doing its work for it.”

For a moment he could hear only the leaves moving above them.