Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 58: My Affections and Wishes Are Unchanged

Darcy comes back from London with Bingley, a walking party sets out toward Lucas Lodge, and the pairs fall into place until Elizabeth finds herself beside the one man she has everything to say to. This episode is the complete audiobook of Chapter 58 of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice: the second proposal, and the conversation the whole novel has been building toward.

Elizabeth spends her courage first, thanking him for his unexampled kindness to Lydia. His answer sets aside the secret and states the truth plainly: he thought only of her. Then, gently: his affections and wishes are unchanged, but one word from her will silence him on the subject for ever. The word never comes, and everything else does.

• Elizabeth's acceptance produces happiness he has probably never allowed himself before, and the two walk on with no idea of direction while months of misunderstanding are unwound sentence by sentence.
• Darcy credits Lady Catherine's interference with teaching him to hope: a woman determined to refuse him would have told his aunt so frankly and gained the cheap triumph.
• His self-accounting spares nothing: given good principles and left to follow them in pride and conceit, a selfish being all his life, until a certain refusal at Hunsford humbled him properly. What do I not owe you, he tells her: by you, I was properly humbled.
• The letter, the Netherfield concealment, and Bingley get their reckonings too, including Darcy's confession that he has told his friend the truth and given the marriage his glad blessing.