Shocked and dismayed, she now saw, but saw with horror, the removal of
all her doubts, and the explanation of all her difficulties, in the
full and irrefragable discovery of the perfidy of her oldest friend and
confident.

Miss Bennet herself she regarded in the affair as a mere tool, which,
though in effect it did the work, was innocent of its mischief, because
powerless but in the hand of its employer.

"That employer," cried she, "must be Mr Monckton! Mr Monckton whom so
long I have known, who so willingly has been my counsellor, so ably my
instructor! in whose integrity I have confided, upon whose friendship I
have relied! my succour in all emergencies, my guide in all
perplexities!--Mr _Monckton_ thus dishonourably, thus barbarously to
betray me! to turn against me the very confidence I had reposed in his
regard for me! and make use of my own trust to furnish the means to
injure me!"--

She was now wholly confirmed that he had wronged her with Mr Delvile;
she could not have two enemies so malignant without provocation, and he
who so unfeelingly could dissolve a union at the very altar, could
alone have the baseness to calumniate her so cruelly.

Evil thoughts thus awakened, stopt not merely upon facts; conjecture
carried her further, and conjecture built upon probability. The
officiousness of Morrice in pursuing her to London, his visiting her
when there, and his following and watching Delvile, she now reasonably
concluded were actions directed by Mr Monckton, whose house he had but
just left, and whose orders, whatever they might be, she was almost
certain he would obey. Availing himself, therefore, of the forwardness