When I iread this line of Willoughby's my reation was more along the lines of "here we go again." Surely, he's exaggereated, as others have said, but he's such a Romantic, and such a dramatic person, that I can see him jumping right into that little bit of drama. It's a ridiculous statement altogther, but I think his goal is some sort of dramatic presentation of how far he's come in his agony and pain over Marianne. He's dropping a big hint to Elinor here that he did not, in fact, come the thirty or so miles from Coombe Magna.

Readers of a Romantic inclination who pity Willoughbywould probably have swooned at the thought of this poor young man! So overought with pain and grief at the thought of his beloved sick that he traveled all that way in such agony (and of course, it's really about him, and not her at all)! I can't help but think this is another example of his playing the hero in one of Marianne's Romantic novels.