Jane Austen: Sense and Sensibility

Chapter 44 (continued)

Miss Dashwood, at this point, turning her eyes on him with the most angry contempt, stopped him, by saying,

"It is hardly worth while, Mr. Willoughby, for you to relate, or for me to listen any longer. Such a beginning as this cannot be followed by any thing.-- Do not let me be pained by hearing any thing more on the subject."

"I insist on you hearing the whole of it," he replied, "My fortune was never large, and I had always been expensive, always in the habit of associating with people of better income than myself. Every year since my coming of age, or even before, I believe, had added to my debts; and though the death of my old cousin, Mrs. Smith, was to set me free; yet that event being uncertain, and possibly far distant, it had been for some time my intention to re-establish my circumstances by marrying a woman of fortune. To attach myself to your sister, therefore, was not a thing to be thought of;--and with a meanness, selfishness, cruelty-- which no indignant, no contemptuous look, even of yours, Miss Dashwood, can ever reprobate too much--I was acting in this manner, trying to engage her regard, without a thought of returning it.--But one thing may be said for me: even in that horrid state of selfish vanity, I did not know the extent of the injury I meditated, because I did not THEN know what it was to love. But have I ever known it?--Well may it be doubted; for, had I really loved, could I have sacrificed my feelings to vanity, to avarice?--or, what is more, could I have sacrificed hers?-- But I have done it. To avoid a comparative poverty, which her affection and her society would have deprived of all its horrors, I have, by raising myself to affluence, lost every thing that could make it a blessing."

"You did then," said Elinor, a little softened, "believe yourself at one time attached to her?"