"You are very good, Elizabeth," he said, as they shook hands. "Whatever happiness comes out of this I shall owe to you. But it is beyond what I can expect. There never was much reason why she should look at me, and now, if she connects me with this wretched affair, there is less than ever." Elizabeth once more earnestly begged him to take a more cheerful view, and immediately afterwards she and Darcy started their long journey northwards; and their cousin, having exchanged a few words with James Morland, who had walked round to the hotel a few moments earlier to take leave of his friends, returned to his own rooms and to the thought of Mary Crawford, which, indeed, was never absent from him. His eagerness to be with her once more was only exceeded by his desire to protect her fair name against the danger which threatened it; and in spite of Darcy's advice he came to the conclusion, after long thought, that he was justified in going first to the Ferrars's and then, if necessary, to Mr. Yates, to demand that whoever was responsible for the calumny should retract it. He did not wish to pose as Mary's champion until she had given him the right to take a warmer interest in her than he might yet assert; but as he could not in any case have failed to be aware of the insult last night, and as he was at the same time Miss Crawford's friend and Lady Catherine's nephew, he felt that he could do no less than endeavour to right the wrong himself, having been unsuccessful in an appeal to his aunt, which seemed the most direct.