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“I should not like her to think I doubted her ability.”

“Then tell her so when you see her.”

Charles nodded. He looked toward the door, as though the sensible conversation had supplied enough reason to rise and return upstairs.

Darcy did not help him end it.

“I am afraid,” Charles said at last.

The words came so quietly that Darcy leaned forward.

“Of losing her.”

“I know.”

“No. You know what it is to have lost someone. I have no right to come down here and ask you to assure me that it cannot happen to me.”

“I could give you no such assurance.”

Charles shut his eyes briefly.

Darcy wished he could have answered differently.

“I hope she will be well,” he said. “With all my heart.”

Charles opened his eyes. “I know you do.”

“Your being afraid does not trouble me. You need not apologize for telling me.”

For the first time since they came downstairs, Charles leaned back in his chair.

“I thought obtaining a house would occupy all my anxieties. Every time an agent wrote, I found something new which must be settled before Jane could be comfortable. Now the house will wait, and she is comfortable here, and I have discovered that I can be thoroughly frightened with nothing left to order.”

“There will be something else to order tomorrow.”

Charles gave a short laugh. “Undoubtedly. Mrs. Bennet will think of it before breakfast.”

“Then you may leave that anxiety to her.”

“I would, if she did not return it with additions.”

Darcy smiled. Charles looked at him and smiled, too, though the expression did not last.

“She spoke this afternoon of something which happened when Jane was born. Jane has heard the story often enough to laugh at her, but I had not. I kept looking at my wife and trying to imagine her as the child in it. Then I thought of our own child, and of Jane in pain, and—”

He stopped.

“Mrs. Bennet did not mean to distress you.”

“I know. That makes it very difficult to ask her to stop. She wishes to be useful.”

“Would Jane mind if you told her what troubles you?”

“Jane has enough to consider.”

“She may already know.”

Charles looked up, and Darcy saw that the possibility had occurred to him, too.