A letter can be refused a first reading, but not a second, or a tenth. This episode is the complete audiobook of Chapter 36 of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, in which Elizabeth walks the lane for two hours with Mr. Darcy's letter and argues herself, sentence by sentence, out of everything she was sure of.

She begins determined to disbelieve, reading with a strong prejudice against every line. But the Wickham account will not stay false. Set his charm against the facts, his stories against his conduct, and the gross duplicity lands on the other man. And with Wickham fallen, her treasured first impressions collapse in order, one after the next.

• Elizabeth weighs what she actually knows of Wickham: nothing but his own testimony, delivered to a stranger at a card party, and his boasted fearlessness of Darcy from a man who skipped  ...