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their journey and the friends they had left behind.
In this calm kind of way, with very little interest on either side, they continued to talk, both of them out of spirits, and the thoughts of both engaged elsewhere. Elinor wished very much to ask whether Willoughby were then in town, but she was afraid of giving him pain by any enquiry after his rival; and at length by way of saying something, she asked if he had been in London ever since she had seen him last. “Yes,” he replied with some embarrassment, “almost ever since; I have been once or twice at Delaford for a few days, but it has never been in my power to return to Barton.”
This, and the manner in which it was said, immediately brought back to her remembrance, all the circumstances of his quitting that place, with
