crept on for a few minutes
in silence.

"I am not wishing him too much good," said Marianne at last with a
sigh, "when I wish his secret reflections may be no more unpleasant
than my own. He will suffer enough in them."

"Do you compare your conduct with his?"

"No. I compare it with what it ought to have been; I compare it with
yours."

"Our situations have borne little resemblance."

"They have borne more than our conduct.--Do not, my dearest Elinor, let
your kindness defend what I know your judgment must censure. My
illness has made me think-- It has given me leisure and calmness for
serious recollection. Long before I was enough recovered to talk, I
was perfectly able to reflect. I considered the past: I saw in my own
behaviour, since the beginning of our acquaintance with him last
autumn, nothing but a series of imprudence towards myself, and want of
kindness to others. I saw that my own feelings had prepared my
sufferings, and that my want of fortitude under them had almost led me
to the grave. My illness, I well knew, had been entirely brought on by
myself by such negligence of my own health, as I had felt even at the
time to be wrong. Had I died,--it would have been self-destruction. I
did not know my danger till the danger was removed; but with such
feelings as these reflections gave me, I wonder at my recovery,--wonder
that the very eagerness of my desire to live, to have time for
atonement to my God, and to you all, did not kill me at once. Had I
died,--in what peculiar misery should I have left you, my nurse, my
friend, my sister!--You, who had seen all the fretful selfishness of my
latter days; who had known all the murmurings of my heart!--How should
I have lived in YOUR remembrance!--My mother too! How could you have
consoled her!--I cannot express my own abhorrence of myself. Whenever
I looked towards the past, I saw some duty neglected, or some failing
indulged. Every body seemed injured by me. The kindness, the
unceasing kindness of Mrs. Jennings, I had repaid with ungrateful
contempt. To the Middletons, to the Palmers, the Steeles, to every
common acquaintance even, I had been insolent and unjust; with a heart
hardened against their merits, and a temper irritated by their very
attention.--To John, to Fanny,--yes, even to them, little as they
deserve, I had given less than their due. But you,--you above all,
above my mother, had been wronged by me. I, and only I, knew your
heart an