On the sixth hour of the sixth and last day the lady was willing to spend on her hunt, her quarry appeared. The hunter was waiting in a stand of trees behind a meat pie seller with a good view across the road to the townhouse. The target exited the house, thankfully with only a footman trailing discreetly a dozen steps behind, and ambled over to the park, so it was easy to walk up beside her, walk along for a few steps, and start speaking.

"Do not be alarmed, Miss Darcy. Do not acknowledge me, just keep walking."

"YOU!"

Georgiana Darcy had no idea whether she should be thrilled or terrified to meet her rescuer from the previous summer, so she really could not come up with anything after that initial exclamation. Fortunately, her conversation was not truly required.

"Fear not, Madam. I have come to make your life easier, not harder. Will you hear me out?"

"Of course! I do so wish you would tell me your name or let me help you. I can assure you, I can be trusted. Not a living soul knows about…"

"I know that! I am not worried. I just wanted to relieve you of your worries."

"How?"

Elizabeth chuckled, and replied, "Be at ease. It is simple," but then she paused for a moment before continuing.

"I would like you to maintain your silence, but primarily for your own benefit. Nothing is to be gained by revelations now."

"I reluctantly agree. I cannot imagine telling anyone anyway. I… well, I hope this does not sound like cowardice, but I just cannot. My brother and guardian is the very best of men, completely trustworthy and well connected… but I have nightmares about trying to tell him. They are not as common as they were at first, but…"

Elizabeth took her arm and replied, "I had them as well… for months, but it is better now, no?"

"Yes, better… but I still cannot imagine…"

"Neither can I, to be honest. I can barely stop thinking about it, but I cannot abide to think of the looks I would get from people who love me should they find out the truth. No, ma'am, I will maintain my silence. Even… even…"

They walked on in silence another dozen yards, before the younger asked carefully, "Even when… what?"

Realizing she was woolgathering, Elizabeth continued.

"Miss Darcy… I should not say your name, and should not even know it, but now that I do, it would feel rude not to acknowledge it."

"You may call me anything you like. What shall I call you? It need not be your actual name."

"You may think of me as… Miss Price."

"I am pleased to finally meet you, Miss Price. I believe you were woolgathering though. Even when… what?"

Elizabeth laughed, and thought that she could as easily love this girl as she did her brother, but it was not to be.

"I came to tell you, Miss Darcy, that I will be leaving the reach of English Law and shall not return. You need no longer fear for my safety or my disclosure of our shared secret. I do not know if you worried about me, but… if you have, then put your mind at rest. I will be gone from England very soon."

Georgiana gasped. She had never expected to meet her savior again but had at least hoped she was safe and comfortable in her own home.

"But… but… but…"

Elizabeth tut‑tutted and with a small, sad smile, replied, "Do not fret, young lady. I have not been driven out by the savage hordes. I am leaving my home on my own terms, going to a place I want to go to do something I want to do."

Georgiana was confused, but trusted the older lady implicitly, so she simply took her at her word.

"How… when… well, why are you leaving?"

Elizabeth had thought long and hard about how to answer that question, and answered from her heart… well, the part of the heart containing the most guile anyway.

"I met the best man I have ever known. He is honorable, kind, forthright, thoughtful and best of all, implacably stubborn."

"He sounds much like my brother."

"Then look after your brother, Miss Darcy. He sounds like a treasure."

Georgiana spared a glance sideways at her companion and saw what she expected to see in her face.

"You are in love, Miss Price. Is that why you are leaving?"

"Yes, Miss Darcy. I am. I hope you find the same thing one day. I just have one more thing I would like to say, if you are willing to be advised by me one last time."

"I shall hand it down to posterity with all the éclat of a proverb, Miss Price."

Elizabeth chuckled, and replied, "Some would call you foolish, Miss Darcy… and perhaps they would be right… but point me to anyone who has not been foolish too many times to count. What you were was unlucky, Miss Darcy. It could have happened to any of us. It happened to you, but that does not make you a bad person."

Georgiana nodded quietly, and felt tears falling from her eyes before finally saying, "I will try to believe it, Miss Price. It is difficult, but I will try."

"That is all I ask. Try, Miss Darcy. It is all any of us can do. Lead a good and honorable life. Find a good and honorable man and fill your home with mischievous children. I shall be content if at some time in your future you remember me, knowing in your heart that I am somewhere in the world thinking well of you."

"You said that in Ramsgate, Miss Price. Did you read that somewhere?"

"No, Miss Darcy. It just is a turn of phrase I dreamed up one day and could not let go."

"It is poetry, Miss Price."

Elizabeth nodded, tears falling from her own eyes, and said, "Goodbye, Miss Darcy. Take care of that brother you mentioned."

And then she was gone. Georgiana reached for a handkerchief, and when she glanced back up, her companion was gone as if she had never been there in the first place.

With a smile in her heart, and the first real lightening of her burden since Ramsgate, she turned around so she could, with almost no decorum at all, skip back to Darcy House and see if she could talk her brother out of the funk he had been sunk in for the past month since he left Hertfordshire after Mr. Bingley's ball.