There was no doubt that his disappointment had coloured his whole life. He had allowed himself to think of Miss Crawford, and to build high upon his hopes, and to find himself again mistaken had been a blow which cut at the foundations of all his happiness. His gaiety was feigned, his pursuits had lost their zest, his friends no longer sufficed him: and as he said to Elizabeth, he had felt he had better adopt some country occupation and settle down to it, and there grow old as quietly and quickly as might be. Elizabeth's heart was wrung; the spectacle of her cousin's fine nature locked away, as it were, in a closed room, as a thing no one had any need for, was inexpressively painful to her, and nothing else would have caused her to venture upon a reopening of the subject which he himself had not approached. With the utmost gentleness she spoke a few words of commiseration, and then, still proceeding with extreme caution, she told him of the absence of news and her assumption that Miss Crawford's marriage with Sir Walter Elliot had been delayed. "I daresay it has," returned Colonel Fitzwilliam, with a kind of listlessness, striking with his stick at the head of some tall grasses which bordered their path. "There can be no doubt of it, I suppose?" pursued Elizabeth. "None at all, I should imagine," replied the Colonel. "Miss Crawford is not the kind of woman who would break her word, once the engagement had been announced." "No, of course not," said Elizabeth; "but I had expected that she or Mrs. Grant would have written to me, or even Mrs. Wentworth, as they must know I should be interested." Colonel Fitzwilliam could not immediately recall anything of Mrs. Wentworth beyond her name, and on being reminded that she was Sir Walter Elliot's daughter, presently replied: "I do not think it altogether surprising she should not have written to you. She probably cares little for the marriage, and still less for the one which it was anticipated would follow it--I mean Miss Elliot's to Mr. Crawford." This was a new idea to Elizabeth, and while she was pondering over it, and the inferences to be drawn from it, Colonel Fitzwilliam broke the silence by saying: "Perhaps we had better not speak of this anymore, Elizabeth. I know your great kindness of heart, but I feel it does no good, rather harm, to be reviving thoughts which I must in honour suppress as much as possible. I was anxious to know whether you had heard anything, and to ask you again, when you have the chance, to tell her that I wish her well; but now we have mentioned it, it would, I think, be best for my contemptibly weak character to put it as far away as possible."