Hampshire, 1796

“SO,” SAID MR. MANSFIELD as Jane finished her story, “the woman who offered you forgiveness was the very Nurse whose dismissal was caused by your dishonesty.”

“A fact I did not realize until she called me by name. Even then I questioned her as to how she knew me, and then she told me the rest of her tale. While at the abbey, she had received a letter from her brother that her mother was ill. He would arrive two days hence by the midnight coach and wished to meet her as soon as he arrived. She replied, suggesting that he come to the abbey garden, where she would wait for him. She kept the appointment and warmly embraced the brother she had not seen for over three years. His news was distressing. Their mother, it seemed, was near death. Yet pressing business meant that her brother must leave Reading before dawn and could not return for her for three days. Then, he promised, he would take her to their mother’s bedside. But a young child lurking in the darkness accused her of consorting with a lover and she was sent away before the brother could return. She never saw either brother or mother again.” Jane fell silent, as tears coursed down her youthful cheeks.

“A heavy burden for you indeed,” said Mr. Mansfield. “But you say she offered forgiveness, as does God to all who repent their sins.”

“She died before I could discover her name,” said Jane. “Before I could even offer any apology for my dreadful sin.”

“You were a child, Jane. And though your intellect and the quality of your writing belie it, you are little more than a child even now.”

“I did not come to you to help me make excuses, Mr. Mansfield,” said Jane, wiping away her tears and drawing herself upright. “Or even for comfort. I came because I thought you might help me to discover an act of atonement. Not that any act can give life back to Nurse or to her two children, but I must do something or I shall die as well.”

“Only God can assign punishment, and only he, through Christ, can offer forgiveness. He offers it to Nurse and he offers it to you,” said Mr. Mansfield. “But perhaps there is something you can do that would both honor Nurse and do good to both yourself and others.”

“Anything you suggest that would accomplish all that, I would gladly do.”

“Tell me, Miss Austen, what is your sin?”

“That I judge others,” said Jane. “Not outwardly, but in my mind. I embellish the truth of their lives with the lies of my imagination. And I allow first impressions thus formed to guide too much my opinions.”

Mr. Mansfield sat in silence for a moment, his fingertips pressed against each other. “I believe I begin to see a way in which you might make reasonable amends for your sins and at the same time do great service to one who, though he has known you but a short time, is blessed to call you more than a friend.”

Jane blushed deeply at the compliment, recalling her epiphany about her own feelings toward Mr. Mansfield. To be so clearly loved at a time of such great personal shame touched her deeply.

“It is I who am blessed by your affection and concern, Mr. Mansfield, and I am open to whatever you might suggest.”

“First, Miss Austen, I know enough of the way you work to tell you this. Before you embark on any act of contrition, you must clear your mind of Elinor and Marianne, and the only way to do this is to finish writing their story. I tell you this not merely as a passionate listener who cannot bear the thought that learning the fate of the Dashwoods should be delayed by what I have in mind, but as one who knows that whether you want them to or not the Dashwoods will inhabit your thoughts until you have recorded the end of their story.”

“You do not speak falsely, Mr. Mansfield. For though my heart aches for the sin which I have committed against God and my dear Nurse, my mind is nonetheless racing with the happenings at Barton Cottage.”

“It is no sin to begin your atonement with a mind emptied of such encumbrances,” said Mr. Mansfield, “even if it means delaying that act by a few days or even weeks.”

“Truly, I think you are closer to the mark when you say days, for though you may not believe it, if our conversation in the park before my departure to Kent is truthful evidence, the story of the Dashwoods is nearly at an end.”

“Then you must bring the novel to its conclusion, read it to your family and to myself, and then with uncluttered minds and open hearts we can begin the project which I have in mind.”

“You have not yet said what form this project takes, Mr. Mansfield, or in what way it could possibly provide me with atonement for the sins I have committed.”

“Finish with the Dashwoods, Miss Austen. Then I shall tell you of my plan.”