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“I saw it,” he said.

“I know.”

“It moved without either of your hands touching that end.”

“Yes.”

Elizabeth waited as though there were a further question she dreaded. Darcy found that the most immediate one was quite simple.

“How long have you been dealing with this alone?”

Her eyes widened. Reynolds looked up from the table.

“I have not been alone for some time,” Elizabeth said. “Mrs. Reynolds has helped me. At first there were dreams. Then a ribbon came undone when I had scarcely touched it, and I began to think—” She stopped, pressed her lips together, and tried again. “I did not know what to think.”

“Before you came here?”

“No. Nothing happened before I came here.”

He considered her answer. “The dreams began at Pemberley?”

“All of it began at Pemberley. I was a perfectly ordinary woman at Longbourn.”

Darcy doubted that she had ever been ordinary, but the compliment was unequal to what she was trying to tell him.

“Then something here—”

“Yes. Your land bewitches people, Mr. Darcy. I am sure it is very inconvenient for you, but it has been considerably more inconvenient for me.”

He looked at her for a moment, then laughed.

Elizabeth’s mouth trembled before she joined him. Reynolds placed the folded cloths in their box with a firm attention which did not conceal her smile.

The laughter ended sooner than he wished. Darcy was tired, and Elizabeth saw it.

“We need not tell you everything now.”

“There is more?”

“There is an old book, and some papers. Some things we understand very badly, and others upon which we disagree.”

“Miss Bennet dislikes an answer which only appears to answer the question,” Reynolds said.

“I am beginning to recognize the difficulty,” Darcy replied.

Elizabeth smiled at him again. It made the next admission possible, although not comfortable.

“I have dreamed of this house, too. Of its old history.”

Reynolds turned fully toward him.

“Have you, sir?”

“Twice.” He looked at Elizabeth. “The name Nicholas occurred in both.”

Her smile disappeared. She did not exclaim or assure him that it meant nothing. That seriousness troubled him more than he had expected.

“Then we ought to talk together,” she said. “When you have rested.”