Evidence! What complacency could Wickham’s “evidence” afford him? Surely, he is beyond any claim to mercy! Darcy’s umbrage protested, a niggling unease attacking the edges of his certainty. He leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest, mirroring in knife-edged attention what his cousin did in slumber.

“And, if exempt at least from any gross vice,” the Doctor continued, “or if sometimes accidentally betrayed into it, on its never having been indulged habitually, you may congratulate yourself on your inoffensiveness to your Creator and society in general. Or if not even so” — the Doctor delicately cleared his throat — “yet on the balance being in your favor or, on the whole, not much against you, when your good and bad actions are fairly weighed, and due allowance is made for human frailty, you may with assurance consider your portion of humanity’s contract with the Almighty fulfilled and the rewards of blessedness secured.”

Darcy stared at the pulpit, his mind and body forcibly communicating afresh to him the odium of Wickham’s deeds, and his re-animated rage forged new links in the chain of his soul-deep resentment. Would Wickham escape even the bar of eternal justice? “On the balance…not much against…fairly weighed…due allowance!” Wickham himself could hardly have pled his case with more eloquence and sympathetic appeal! Darcy’s jaw tightened — a dangerous, darkling eye the only relief from a chilling, stony countenance.

The Reverend Doctor continued. “To that end, ‘Know thyself,’ as the philosopher says, and in prudence of mind, conduct yourselves according to the advice of St.