feat_summary_path: finished_summaries/shmoop/Sense and Sensibility/section_30_part_0.txt
feat_book_id: Sense and Sensibility.chapter 31
feat_summary_id: chapter 31
feat_summary: {"name": "Chapter 31", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210421140324/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/sense-and-sensibility/summary/chapter-31", "summary": "Marianne awakes the next morning just as miserable as the day before. She and Elinor discuss the situation over and over again - she keeps going back and forth on the issue of how much blame to place on Willoughby. One thing Marianne doesn't waver on is her desire to not see Mrs. Jennings, who she finds profoundly unhelpful. Even Mrs. Jennings's good-natured idea that a letter from home will make Marianne feel better convinces the afflicted girl of her hostess's lack of sensitivity - after all, the only thing that could make Marianne feel better is the appearance of a contrite Willoughby. To make matters worse, the letter from Mrs. Dashwood is full of questions and hints about Willoughby, since she doesn't know what has happened yet. Marianne is more resolved to go home than ever, but Elinor convinces her to wait and see what their mother says about the situation. Mrs. Jennings goes out on her social calls earlier than usual that day; she can't wait to tell people the news about Marianne and Willoughby. While she's gone, Colonel Brandon shows up again. Marianne, not wanting to see him, leaves the room. Elinor meets with the Colonel alone - he has something to tell them about Willoughby that might make Marianne feel somewhat better, or at least make her feel lucky that she didn't actually get stuck marrying him. Finally, we get the story of Colonel's mysterious past, and his mysterious departure from Barton last fall. He takes us all the way back to a comment that he made to Elinor way early on in their acquaintance - about how Marianne reminds him of someone he once knew. The lady Marianne reminds him of is his orphaned cousin, Eliza, who he'd loved ever since they were both kids. We get their whole tragic love history: At seventeen, despite her love for Colonel Brandon, Eliza is married off to the Colonel's brother. The reason is this - Eliza has inherited a lot of money, and the Brandons are kind of in the lurch financially, so the Colonel's father strong-arms her into the marriage. Colonel Brandon and Eliza continue to love each other, despite the fact that she is married to his undeserving brother. They plan to elope, but they are thwarted by a treacherous maid - Eliza is punished by her father-in-law and husband, while Colonel Brandon is sent away, first to a distant relative's house, then to the East Indies with the army. Two years later, he hears that Eliza is divorced. At this point in telling his story, the Colonel has to pause - he's too distressed to continue. Elinor is concerned for her friend; he assures her that he's OK and continues. Three years later, Colonel Brandon finally returns home to England. The first thing he does is seek out Eliza - it's a difficult search. Apparently, she'd been seduced by a series of bad men, and fallen into a disreputable life. From what he gathers from his brother, Eliza doesn't even have enough money left to keep her in good health. Coincidence leads Colonel Brandon to a \"spunging house,\" a kind of debtor's prison, where he finds Eliza, about to die of consumption . Colonel Brandon pays for Eliza to be moved to a better place to live, and tries to make her happy for the rest of her brief life. The Colonel pauses here in his story to assure Elinor that he doesn't think the same thing will happen to Marianne - their resemblance will surely not lead to similar fates. Back to his story: When Eliza dies, she leaves Colonel Brandon in charge of her only child, a little girl who was born out of wedlock after her first affair. The child is only about three years old. It turns out that this is the girl that Mrs. Jennings thought was Colonel Brandon's love child - in fact, she's his ward . Colonel Brandon provides the little girl with schooling and then with a caretaker in Dorset, where she lives with a bunch of other girls about her own age . Last February, though, Eliza disappeared. The Colonel had given her permission to go to Bath with a friend and the friend's family - and from there, she ran off somewhere. Nobody could or would say where - and she was gone for eight mysterious months. Elinor realizes that this, unfortunately, is probably where Willoughby comes in. Colonel Brandon goes on. Last October, when he had to flee from Barton, he'd received news of Eliza - actually, a letter from the girl herself. He confirms the fact that Eliza's disappearance was Willoughby's fault - he'd seduced her, left her, promised to return, but then never did. Basically, he got her pregnant and fled the scene. Elinor is shocked and dismayed. Colonel Brandon explains that this is why he's been so worried about Marianne's relationship with Willoughby - he didn't want to interfere, and he'd thought that maybe Marianne could reform him. However, it's clear that she couldn't. Colonel Brandon hopes that Marianne can at least feel grateful that she's not in the same situation as poor the poor young Eliza. Elinor asks if Colonel Brandon has seen Willoughby since this all went down. Apparently, he challenged the younger man to a duel, but both of them emerged unscathed. Elinor then inquires about Eliza's state - and learns that the girl, who just had her baby, has been moved to the country. His tale told, Colonel Brandon departs.", "analysis": ""}
text: 
  
  From a night of more sleep than she had expected, Marianne awoke the
  next morning to the same consciousness of misery in which she had
  closed her eyes.
  
  Elinor encouraged her as much as possible to talk of what she felt; and
  before breakfast was ready, they had gone through the subject again and
  again; and with the same steady conviction and affectionate counsel on
  Elinor's side, the same impetuous feelings and varying opinions on
  Marianne's, as before.  Sometimes she could believe Willoughby to be as
  unfortunate and as innocent as herself, and at others, lost every
  consolation in the impossibility of acquitting him.  At one moment she
  was absolutely indifferent to the observation of all the world, at
  another she would seclude herself from it for ever, and at a third
  could resist it with energy.  In one thing, however, she was uniform,
  when it came to the point, in avoiding, where it was possible, the
  presence of Mrs. Jennings, and in a determined silence when obliged to
  endure it.  Her heart was hardened against the belief of Mrs.
  Jennings's entering into her sorrows with any compassion.
  
  "No, no, no, it cannot be," she cried; "she cannot feel.  Her kindness
  is not sympathy; her good-nature is not tenderness.  All that she wants
  is gossip, and she only likes me now because I supply it."
  
  Elinor had not needed this to be assured of the injustice to which her
  sister was often led in her opinion of others, by the irritable
  refinement of her own mind, and the too great importance placed by her
  on the delicacies of a strong sensibility, and the graces of a polished
  manner.  Like half the rest of the world, if more than half there be
  that are clever and good, Marianne, with excellent abilities and an
  excellent disposition, was neither reasonable nor candid.  She expected
  from other people the same opinions and feelings as her own, and she
  judged of their motives by the immediate effect of their actions on
  herself.  Thus a circumstance occurred, while the sisters were together
  in their own room after breakfast, which sunk the heart of Mrs.
  Jennings still lower in her estimation; because, through her own
  weakness, it chanced to prove a source of fresh pain to herself, though
  Mrs. Jennings was governed in it by an impulse of the utmost goodwill.
  
  With a letter in her outstretched hand, and countenance gaily smiling,
  from the persuasion of bringing comfort, she entered their room, saying,
  
  "Now, my dear, I bring you something that I am sure will do you good."
  
  Marianne heard enough.  In one moment her imagination placed before her
  a letter from Willoughby, full of tenderness and contrition,
  explanatory of all that had passed, satisfactory, convincing; and
  instantly followed by Willoughby himself, rushing eagerly into the room
  to inforce, at her feet, by the eloquence of his eyes, the assurances
  of his letter.  The work of one moment was destroyed by the next.  The
  hand writing of her mother, never till then unwelcome, was before her;
  and, in the acuteness of the disappointment which followed such an
  ecstasy of more than hope, she felt as if, till that instant, she had
  never suffered.
  
  The cruelty of Mrs. Jennings no language, within her reach in her
  moments of happiest eloquence, could have expressed; and now she could
  reproach her only by the tears which streamed from her eyes with
  passionate violence--a reproach, however, so entirely lost on its
  object, that after many expressions of pity, she withdrew, still
  referring her to the letter of comfort.  But the letter, when she was
  calm enough to read it, brought little comfort.  Willoughby filled
  every page.  Her mother, still confident of their engagement, and
  relying as warmly as ever on his constancy, had only been roused by
  Elinor's application, to intreat from Marianne greater openness towards
  them both; and this, with such tenderness towards her, such affection
  for Willoughby, and such a conviction of their future happiness in each
  other, that she wept with agony through the whole of it.
  
  All her impatience to be at home again now returned; her mother was
  dearer to her than ever; dearer through the very excess of her mistaken
  confidence in Willoughby, and she was wildly urgent to be gone.
  Elinor, unable herself to determine whether it were better for Marianne
  to be in London or at Barton, offered no counsel of her own except of
  patience till their mother's wishes could be known; and at length she
  obtained her sister's consent to wait for that knowledge.
  
  Mrs. Jennings left them earlier than usual; for she could not be easy
  till the Middletons and Palmers were able to grieve as much as herself;
  and positively refusing Elinor's offered attendance, went out alone for
  the rest of the morning.  Elinor, with a very heavy heart, aware of the
  pain she was going to communicate, and perceiving, by Marianne's
  letter, how ill she had succeeded in laying any foundation for it, then
  sat down to write her mother an account of what had passed, and entreat
  her directions for the future; while Marianne, who came into the
  drawing-room on Mrs. Jennings's going away, remained fixed at the table
  where Elinor wrote, watching the advancement of her pen, grieving over
  her for the hardship of such a task, and grieving still more fondly
  over its effect on her mother.
  
  In this manner they had continued about a quarter of an hour, when
  Marianne, whose nerves could not then bear any sudden noise, was
  startled by a rap at the door.
  
  "Who can this be?" cried Elinor.  "So early too! I thought we HAD been
  safe."
  
  Marianne moved to the window--
  
  "It is Colonel Brandon!" said she, with vexation.  "We are never safe
  from HIM."
  
  "He will not come in, as Mrs. Jennings is from home."
  
  "I will not trust to THAT," retreating to her own room.  "A man who has
  nothing to do with his own time has no conscience in his intrusion on
  that of others."
  
  The event proved her conjecture right, though it was founded on
  injustice and error; for Colonel Brandon DID come in; and Elinor, who
  was convinced that solicitude for Marianne brought him thither, and who
  saw THAT solicitude in his disturbed and melancholy look, and in his
  anxious though brief inquiry after her, could not forgive her sister
  for esteeming him so lightly.
  
  "I met Mrs. Jennings in Bond Street," said he, after the first
  salutation, "and she encouraged me to come on; and I was the more
  easily encouraged, because I thought it probable that I might find you
  alone, which I was very desirous of doing.  My object--my wish--my sole
  wish in desiring it--I hope, I believe it is--is to be a means of
  giving comfort;--no, I must not say comfort--not present comfort--but
  conviction, lasting conviction to your sister's mind.  My regard for
  her, for yourself, for your mother--will you allow me to prove it, by
  relating some circumstances which nothing but a VERY sincere
  regard--nothing but an earnest desire of being useful--I think I am
  justified--though where so many hours have been spent in convincing
  myself that I am right, is there not some reason to fear I may be
  wrong?" He stopped.
  
  "I understand you," said Elinor.  "You have something to tell me of Mr.
  Willoughby, that will open his character farther.  Your telling it will
  be the greatest act of friendship that can be shewn Marianne.  MY
  gratitude will be insured immediately by any information tending to
  that end, and HERS must be gained by it in time.  Pray, pray let me
  hear it."
  
  "You shall; and, to be brief, when I quitted Barton last October,--but
  this will give you no idea--I must go farther back.  You will find me a
  very awkward narrator, Miss Dashwood; I hardly know where to begin.  A
  short account of myself, I believe, will be necessary, and it SHALL be
  a short one.  On such a subject," sighing heavily, "can I have little
  temptation to be diffuse."
  
  He stopt a moment for recollection, and then, with another sigh, went
  on.
  
  "You have probably entirely forgotten a conversation--(it is not to be
  supposed that it could make any impression on you)--a conversation
  between us one evening at Barton Park--it was the evening of a
  dance--in which I alluded to a lady I had once known, as resembling, in
  some measure, your sister Marianne."
  
  "Indeed," answered Elinor, "I have NOT forgotten it." He looked pleased
  by this remembrance, and added,
  
  "If I am not deceived by the uncertainty, the partiality of tender
  recollection, there is a very strong resemblance between them, as well
  in mind as person.  The same warmth of heart, the same eagerness of
  fancy and spirits.  This lady was one of my nearest relations, an
  orphan from her infancy, and under the guardianship of my father.  Our
  ages were nearly the same, and from our earliest years we were
  playfellows and friends.  I cannot remember the time when I did not
  love Eliza; and my affection for her, as we grew up, was such, as
  perhaps, judging from my present forlorn and cheerless gravity, you
  might think me incapable of having ever felt.  Hers, for me, was, I
  believe, fervent as the attachment of your sister to Mr. Willoughby and
  it was, though from a different cause, no less unfortunate.  At
  seventeen she was lost to me for ever.  She was married--married
  against her inclination to my brother.  Her fortune was large, and our
  family estate much encumbered.  And this, I fear, is all that can be
  said for the conduct of one, who was at once her uncle and guardian.
  My brother did not deserve her; he did not even love her.  I had hoped
  that her regard for me would support her under any difficulty, and for
  some time it did; but at last the misery of her situation, for she
  experienced great unkindness, overcame all her resolution, and though
  she had promised me that nothing--but how blindly I relate!  I have
  never told you how this was brought on.  We were within a few hours of
  eloping together for Scotland.  The treachery, or the folly, of my
  cousin's maid betrayed us.  I was banished to the house of a relation
  far distant, and she was allowed no liberty, no society, no amusement,
  till my father's point was gained.  I had depended on her fortitude too
  far, and the blow was a severe one--but had her marriage been happy, so
  young as I then was, a few months must have reconciled me to it, or at
  least I should not have now to lament it.  This however was not the
  case.  My brother had no regard for her; his pleasures were not what
  they ought to have been, and from the first he treated her unkindly.
  The consequence of this, upon a mind so young, so lively, so
  inexperienced as Mrs. Brandon's, was but too natural.  She resigned
  herself at first to all the misery of her situation; and happy had it
  been if she had not lived to overcome those regrets which the
  remembrance of me occasioned.  But can we wonder that, with such a
  husband to provoke inconstancy, and without a friend to advise or
  restrain her (for my father lived only a few months after their
  marriage, and I was with my regiment in the East Indies) she should
  fall?  Had I remained in England, perhaps--but I meant to promote the
  happiness of both by removing from her for years, and for that purpose
  had procured my exchange.  The shock which her marriage had given me,"
  he continued, in a voice of great agitation, "was of trifling
  weight--was nothing to what I felt when I heard, about two years
  afterwards, of her divorce.  It was THAT which threw this gloom,--even
  now the recollection of what I suffered--"
  
  He could say no more, and rising hastily walked for a few minutes about
  the room.  Elinor, affected by his relation, and still more by his
  distress, could not speak.  He saw her concern, and coming to her, took
  her hand, pressed it, and kissed it with grateful respect.  A few
  minutes more of silent exertion enabled him to proceed with composure.
  
  "It was nearly three years after this unhappy period before I returned
  to England.  My first care, when I DID arrive, was of course to seek
  for her; but the search was as fruitless as it was melancholy.  I could
  not trace her beyond her first seducer, and there was every reason to
  fear that she had removed from him only to sink deeper in a life of
  sin.  Her legal allowance was not adequate to her fortune, nor
  sufficient for her comfortable maintenance, and I learnt from my
  brother that the power of receiving it had been made over some months
  before to another person.  He imagined, and calmly could he imagine it,
  that her extravagance, and consequent distress, had obliged her to
  dispose of it for some immediate relief.  At last, however, and after I
  had been six months in England, I DID find her.  Regard for a former
  servant of my own, who had since fallen into misfortune, carried me to
  visit him in a spunging-house, where he was confined for debt; and
  there, in the same house, under a similar confinement, was my unfortunate
  sister.  So altered--so faded--worn down by acute suffering of every
  kind! hardly could I believe the melancholy and sickly figure before
  me, to be the remains of the lovely, blooming, healthful girl, on whom
  I had once doted.  What I endured in so beholding her--but I have no
  right to wound your feelings by attempting to describe it--I have
  pained you too much already.  That she was, to all appearance, in the
  last stage of a consumption, was--yes, in such a situation it was my
  greatest comfort.  Life could do nothing for her, beyond giving time
  for a better preparation for death; and that was given.  I saw her
  placed in comfortable lodgings, and under proper attendants; I visited
  her every day during the rest of her short life: I was with her in her
  last moments."
  
  Again he stopped to recover himself; and Elinor spoke her feelings in
  an exclamation of tender concern, at the fate of his unfortunate friend.
  
  "Your sister, I hope, cannot be offended," said he, "by the resemblance
  I have fancied between her and my poor disgraced relation.  Their
  fates, their fortunes, cannot be the same; and had the natural sweet
  disposition of the one been guarded by a firmer mind, or a happier
  marriage, she might have been all that you will live to see the other
  be.  But to what does all this lead?  I seem to have been distressing
  you for nothing.  Ah! Miss Dashwood--a subject such as this--untouched
  for fourteen years--it is dangerous to handle it at all!  I WILL be
  more collected--more concise.  She left to my care her only child, a
  little girl, the offspring of her first guilty connection, who was then
  about three years old.  She loved the child, and had always kept it
  with her.  It was a valued, a precious trust to me; and gladly would I
  have discharged it in the strictest sense, by watching over her
  education myself, had the nature of our situations allowed it; but I
  had no family, no home; and my little Eliza was therefore placed at
  school.  I saw her there whenever I could, and after the death of my
  brother, (which happened about five years ago, and which left to me the
  possession of the family property,) she visited me at Delaford.  I
  called her a distant relation; but I am well aware that I have in
  general been suspected of a much nearer connection with her.  It is now
  three years ago (she had just reached her fourteenth year,) that I
  removed her from school, to place her under the care of a very
  respectable woman, residing in Dorsetshire, who had the charge of four
  or five other girls of about the same time of life; and for two years I
  had every reason to be pleased with her situation.  But last February,
  almost a twelvemonth back, she suddenly disappeared.  I had allowed
  her, (imprudently, as it has since turned out,) at her earnest desire,
  to go to Bath with one of her young friends, who was attending her
  father there for his health.  I knew him to be a very good sort of man,
  and I thought well of his daughter--better than she deserved, for, with
  a most obstinate and ill-judged secrecy, she would tell nothing, would
  give no clue, though she certainly knew all.  He, her father, a
  well-meaning, but not a quick-sighted man, could really, I believe,
  give no information; for he had been generally confined to the house,
  while the girls were ranging over the town and making what acquaintance
  they chose; and he tried to convince me, as thoroughly as he was
  convinced himself, of his daughter's being entirely unconcerned in the
  business.  In short, I could learn nothing but that she was gone; all
  the rest, for eight long months, was left to conjecture.  What I
  thought, what I feared, may be imagined; and what I suffered too."
  
  "Good heavens!" cried Elinor, "could it be--could Willoughby!"--
  
  "The first news that reached me of her," he continued, "came in a
  letter from herself, last October.  It was forwarded to me from
  Delaford, and I received it on the very morning of our intended party
  to Whitwell; and this was the reason of my leaving Barton so suddenly,
  which I am sure must at the time have appeared strange to every body,
  and which I believe gave offence to some.  Little did Mr. Willoughby
  imagine, I suppose, when his looks censured me for incivility in
  breaking up the party, that I was called away to the relief of one whom
  he had made poor and miserable; but HAD he known it, what would it have
  availed?  Would he have been less gay or less happy in the smiles of
  your sister?  No, he had already done that, which no man who CAN feel
  for another would do.  He had left the girl whose youth and innocence
  he had seduced, in a situation of the utmost distress, with no
  creditable home, no help, no friends, ignorant of his address!  He had
  left her, promising to return; he neither returned, nor wrote, nor
  relieved her."
  
  "This is beyond every thing!" exclaimed Elinor.
  
  "His character is now before you; expensive, dissipated, and worse than
  both.  Knowing all this, as I have now known it many weeks, guess what
  I must have felt on seeing your sister as fond of him as ever, and on
  being assured that she was to marry him: guess what I must have felt
  for all your sakes.  When I came to you last week and found you alone,
  I came determined to know the truth; though irresolute what to do when
  it WAS known.  My behaviour must have seemed strange to you then; but
  now you will comprehend it.  To suffer you all to be so deceived; to
  see your sister--but what could I do?  I had no hope of interfering
  with success; and sometimes I thought your sister's influence might yet
  reclaim him.  But now, after such dishonorable usage, who can tell what
  were his designs on her.  Whatever they may have been, however, she may
  now, and hereafter doubtless WILL turn with gratitude towards her own
  condition, when she compares it with that of my poor Eliza, when she
  considers the wretched and hopeless situation of this poor girl, and
  pictures her to herself, with an affection for him so strong, still as
  strong as her own, and with a mind tormented by self-reproach, which
  must attend her through life.  Surely this comparison must have its use
  with her.  She will feel her own sufferings to be nothing.  They
  proceed from no misconduct, and can bring no disgrace.  On the
  contrary, every friend must be made still more her friend by them.
  Concern for her unhappiness, and respect for her fortitude under it,
  must strengthen every attachment.  Use your own discretion, however, in
  communicating to her what I have told you.  You must know best what
  will be its effect; but had I not seriously, and from my heart believed
  it might be of service, might lessen her regrets, I would not have
  suffered myself to trouble you with this account of my family
  afflictions, with a recital which may seem to have been intended to
  raise myself at the expense of others."
  
  Elinor's thanks followed this speech with grateful earnestness;
  attended too with the assurance of her expecting material advantage to
  Marianne, from the communication of what had passed.
  
  "I have been more pained," said she, "by her endeavors to acquit him
  than by all the rest; for it irritates her mind more than the most
  perfect conviction of his unworthiness can do.  Now, though at first
  she will suffer much, I am sure she will soon become easier.  Have
  you," she continued, after a short silence, "ever seen Mr. Willoughby
  since you left him at Barton?"
  
  "Yes," he replied gravely, "once I have.  One meeting was unavoidable."
  
  Elinor, startled by his manner, looked at him anxiously, saying,
  
  "What? have you met him to--"
  
  "I could meet him no other way.  Eliza had confessed to me, though most
  reluctantly, the name of her lover; and when he returned to town, which
  was within a fortnight after myself, we met by appointment, he to
  defend, I to punish his conduct.  We returned unwounded, and the
  meeting, therefore, never got abroad."
  
  Elinor sighed over the fancied necessity of this; but to a man and a
  soldier she presumed not to censure it.
  
  "Such," said Colonel Brandon, after a pause, "has been the unhappy
  resemblance between the fate of mother and daughter! and so imperfectly
  have I discharged my trust!"
  
  "Is she still in town?"
  
  "No; as soon as she recovered from her lying-in, for I found her near
  her delivery, I removed her and her child into the country, and there
  she remains."
  
  Recollecting, soon afterwards, that he was probably dividing Elinor
  from her sister, he put an end to his visit, receiving from her again
  the same grateful acknowledgments, and leaving her full of compassion
  and esteem for him.
  
  
  
feat_summary_name: Chapter 31
target: Marianne awakes the next morning just as miserable as the day before. She and Elinor discuss the situation over and over again - she keeps going back and forth on the issue of how much blame to place on Willoughby. One thing Marianne doesn't waver on is her desire to not see Mrs. Jennings, who she finds profoundly unhelpful. Even Mrs. Jennings's good-natured idea that a letter from home will make Marianne feel better convinces the afflicted girl of her hostess's lack of sensitivity - after all, the only thing that could make Marianne feel better is the appearance of a contrite Willoughby. To make matters worse, the letter from Mrs. Dashwood is full of questions and hints about Willoughby, since she doesn't know what has happened yet. Marianne is more resolved to go home than ever, but Elinor convinces her to wait and see what their mother says about the situation. Mrs. Jennings goes out on her social calls earlier than usual that day; she can't wait to tell people the news about Marianne and Willoughby. While she's gone, Colonel Brandon shows up again. Marianne, not wanting to see him, leaves the room. Elinor meets with the Colonel alone - he has something to tell them about Willoughby that might make Marianne feel somewhat better, or at least make her feel lucky that she didn't actually get stuck marrying him. Finally, we get the story of Colonel's mysterious past, and his mysterious departure from Barton last fall. He takes us all the way back to a comment that he made to Elinor way early on in their acquaintance - about how Marianne reminds him of someone he once knew. The lady Marianne reminds him of is his orphaned cousin, Eliza, who he'd loved ever since they were both kids. We get their whole tragic love history: At seventeen, despite her love for Colonel Brandon, Eliza is married off to the Colonel's brother. The reason is this - Eliza has inherited a lot of money, and the Brandons are kind of in the lurch financially, so the Colonel's father strong-arms her into the marriage. Colonel Brandon and Eliza continue to love each other, despite the fact that she is married to his undeserving brother. They plan to elope, but they are thwarted by a treacherous maid - Eliza is punished by her father-in-law and husband, while Colonel Brandon is sent away, first to a distant relative's house, then to the East Indies with the army. Two years later, he hears that Eliza is divorced. At this point in telling his story, the Colonel has to pause - he's too distressed to continue. Elinor is concerned for her friend; he assures her that he's OK and continues. Three years later, Colonel Brandon finally returns home to England. The first thing he does is seek out Eliza - it's a difficult search. Apparently, she'd been seduced by a series of bad men, and fallen into a disreputable life. From what he gathers from his brother, Eliza doesn't even have enough money left to keep her in good health. Coincidence leads Colonel Brandon to a "spunging house," a kind of debtor's prison, where he finds Eliza, about to die of consumption . Colonel Brandon pays for Eliza to be moved to a better place to live, and tries to make her happy for the rest of her brief life. The Colonel pauses here in his story to assure Elinor that he doesn't think the same thing will happen to Marianne - their resemblance will surely not lead to similar fates. Back to his story: When Eliza dies, she leaves Colonel Brandon in charge of her only child, a little girl who was born out of wedlock after her first affair. The child is only about three years old. It turns out that this is the girl that Mrs. Jennings thought was Colonel Brandon's love child - in fact, she's his ward . Colonel Brandon provides the little girl with schooling and then with a caretaker in Dorset, where she lives with a bunch of other girls about her own age . Last February, though, Eliza disappeared. The Colonel had given her permission to go to Bath with a friend and the friend's family - and from there, she ran off somewhere. Nobody could or would say where - and she was gone for eight mysterious months. Elinor realizes that this, unfortunately, is probably where Willoughby comes in. Colonel Brandon goes on. Last October, when he had to flee from Barton, he'd received news of Eliza - actually, a letter from the girl herself. He confirms the fact that Eliza's disappearance was Willoughby's fault - he'd seduced her, left her, promised to return, but then never did. Basically, he got her pregnant and fled the scene. Elinor is shocked and dismayed. Colonel Brandon explains that this is why he's been so worried about Marianne's relationship with Willoughby - he didn't want to interfere, and he'd thought that maybe Marianne could reform him. However, it's clear that she couldn't. Colonel Brandon hopes that Marianne can at least feel grateful that she's not in the same situation as poor the poor young Eliza. Elinor asks if Colonel Brandon has seen Willoughby since this all went down. Apparently, he challenged the younger man to a duel, but both of them emerged unscathed. Elinor then inquires about Eliza's state - and learns that the girl, who just had her baby, has been moved to the country. His tale told, Colonel Brandon departs.