The post has been slow, and now Elizabeth knows why: two letters from Jane arrive at once, the first misdirected by a badly written address. This episode is the complete audiobook of Chapter 46 of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, the hinge on which the third volume turns, and the worst hour of Elizabeth's life to date.

The first letter's postscript breaks the calm: Lydia has gone off from Brighton at midnight with Wickham, bound, it is hoped, for Gretna Green. The second destroys even that hope. Wickham was never going to Scotland; nothing has been heard of any marriage; and Jane begs Elizabeth home at once, with a plea that their uncle join the search in London.

• Colonel Forster's inquiries trace the runaways to Clapham and then into London, a route with no Scotland in it, and Denny's opinion completes the picture: Wickham neve ...