There are guests tonight, and Colonel Fitzwilliam is staying for a while. To be exact, he stayed for a while, and leaves tomorrow.

The dinner goes fine. Elizabeth is the perfect hostess, she behaves well. She shows education and taste.

"What the hell happened to your wife?" asks Colonel Fitzwilliam, later, when the guests are gone, Elizabeth has retired for the night, and he's playing pool with Darcy.

"What do you mean?" Darcy asks. (He knows very well what Fitzwilliam means.)

"She used to be so lively, in Rosings."

"Did you think her inadequate tonight?"

"No! For God's sake Darcy, you know what I mean. It's like a candle has been snuffed."

"Yes," Darcy says slowly.

(That is all he says.)

The game continues.

Colonel Fitzwilliam is not the type to give up easily.

"Have you quarreled?"

"It's a forced marriage, Richard. On both sides."

His cousin is having none of it. "Come on Darcy, you liked her well enough, in Rosings. I even thought... I even thought, for a moment there, you were going to propose."

"Well, I didn't. And I ended up married to her anyway."

"You could have found a way out of it," Fitzwilliam says. "Could have paid the family."

Darcy does not answer. They keep playing.

Then suddenly he cannot pretend anymore.

"God, Richard," he whispers. "I don't know what to do."

His cousin nods. "Tell me what happened."

"Yes, we quarreled. Our wedding night. I yelled at her, and she just… took it, Richard. I thought she would protest. Insult me back, even. She never seemed to lack spirit. But she just... She said I was right, and she just... She just took it."

"What did you say?"

"That she was beneath me."

"Always the charmer."

"And then… As you said. The fire is gone." Darcy looks somewhere undefined, on the other side of the window maybe, but there is nothing on the other side of the windows. Just the night.

"Hum." Fitzwilliam plays, he thinks. "I've seen that, with soldiers."

"Soldiers?"

"They are shocked, by… death, or a canon ball… Noise, blood, or the general merry horror of war."

"She has not seen the merry horrors of war."

"I'm not saying it's the same thing, just that those are similar phenomenons. What I mean, is… You didn't kill her spirit with one fight. Something else happened. Several things, I bet. People… They are fine, and suddenly – a series of events – things that wouldn't affect someone else…"

Darcy thinks. About Elizabeth. Lydia's dishonoring the family, with that man – that sergeant, from the North. Their father's death. The family thrown out of their own house. Jane's departure.

Elizabeth torn up from her friends, sent… here, with him.

"How do you… Those soldiers, did they get better?"

Fitzwilliam doesn't answer instantly. He plays.

"Some of them," he says, lightly. Too lightly. "There are doctors, in London, you know."

They talk about doctors for a while. Then they talk about other topics. Family. Money. Women (for Fitzwilliam.)

Then Fitzwilliam says: "I know something that helps."

"What?"

"Helping."

"I am not sure I follow."

"Helping others. That helps. Those soldiers, those who volunteered at hospitals, opened houses for the wounded, raised money – those are the ones who got better. But it doesn't have to be that complicated. Even helping one person, it – well – helps."

Darcy frowns. That hardly makes sense. And even if it did. Who is Elizabeth going to help? Everybody is fine around here. It's Pemberley. Everybody's just fine.

"So what about you?" Fitzwilliam asks. "After, you know, everything. After… Georgie. How are you?"

"I'm fine," Darcy answers.