Fitzwilliam Darcy was a man, and a man who took much value in his pride. He could count on one hand the number of times he had cried since childhood, the latest, years ago, at the death of his father.
Yet, here he was, pacing his room at Rosings in an anger that was quickly fading into a sort of choking feeling in his chest and a watery blur in his eyes.
It was ridiculous, the very idea of crying over such a woman as Elizabeth Bennet.
And yet, he could not deny that he was.
Her rejection stung him not because it was pride-wounding rejection (and as Mr. Darcy's pride was very important to him, it was quite easy to injure), but because he loved her so very much, so ardently, that the realization that she had denied him spending the rest of his life with her reduced him to the edge of his bed, hands shaking and tears running down his cheeks and onto the floor below.