Ch 23: "...Tell me if, when I returned to England, in the year eight, with a few thousand pounds, and was posted into the Laconia, if I had then written to you, would you have answered my letter? Would you, in short, have renewed the engagement then?"

"Would I?" was all her answer; but the accent was decisive enough.

"Good God!" he cried, "you would! It is not that I did not think of it, or desire it, as what could alone crown all my other success; but I was proud, too proud to ask again."

You are right, CarolTS. He had talked himself out of it. He had thought of it. Desired it. But his own pride prevented him from asking again. He had missed the boat :-)

This is what I like about CW. In the end, he came around to his senses and made things right with Anne. He basically asked her to forgive him in so many words. And Anne did, without a spoken word to that explicit effect. In the end, they forgave each other. This is why "Persuasion" is my favorite JA novel.

And this brings us back to Rae's post where Anne saw the gem in CW's character.

Ch 17: "She prized the frank, the open-hearted, the eager character beyond all others. Warmth and enthusiasm did captivate her still. She felt that she could so much more depend upon the sincerity of those who sometimes looked or said a careless or a hasty thing..."

Those were all about CW. He was frank, open-hearted, eager, warm, enthusiastic, sincere, sometimes careless, sometimes hasty, but he was REAL. That carelessness and hastiness had caused him much grief (6 extra years of pain when it could've been abbreviated and they might now be parents to little Annes). But Anne would rather accept him as a person with all his faults, than to go with Mr Elliot with the polished exterior and rotten core.