must be aware that the interest of one thousand pounds would be a very

insufficient support therein. I rather wished than believed him to be

sincere; but, at any rate, was perfectly ready to accede to his

proposal. I knew that Mr. Wickham ought not to be a clergyman. The

business was therefore soon settled. He resigned all claim to assistance

in the church, were it possible that he could ever be in a situation to

receive it, and accepted in return three thousand pounds. All connection

between us seemed now dissolved. I thought too ill of him to invite him

to Pemberley, or admit his society in town. In town, I believe, he

chiefly lived, but his studying the law was a mere pretence; and being

now free from all restraint, his life was a life of idleness and

dissipation. For about three years I heard little of him; but on the

decease of the incumbent of the living which had been designed for him,

he applied to me again by letter for the presentation. His

circumstances, he assured me, and I had no difficulty in believing it,

were exceedingly bad. He had found the law a most unprofitable study,

and was now absolutely resolved on being ordained, if I would present

him to the living in question—of which he trusted there could be little

doubt, as he was well assured that I had no other person to provide for,

and I could not have forgotten my revered father’s intentions. You will

hardly blame me{251} for refusing to comply with this entreaty, or for

resisting every repetition of it. His resentment was in proportion to

the distress of his circumstances—and he was doubtless as violent in

his abuse of me to others as in his reproaches to myself. After this

period, every appearance of acquaintance was dropped. How he lived, I

know not. But last summer he was again most painfully obtruded on my

notice. I must now mention a circumstance which I would wish to forget

myself, and which no obligation less than the present should induce me