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- The next day, he visits once again to share with Elinor the sad story of his own romantic history, in the interest of shedding light on Marianne's predicament: he explains that he was once deeply in love with a woman named Eliza, but she was married against his inclination to his brother so as to ensure her fortune for the family.
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What did Colonel Brandon tell Marianne about Eliza?
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Elinor shares Colonel Brandon's story with Marianne and Marianne mourns the loss of Willoughby's "good" character just as she mourned the loss of him to another woman. The sisters also receive a note from their mother expressing her shock and pain at the news of Willoughby's betrayal.
In social life and in courtship, the Colonel may be considered an uninteresting character. Unlike the traditional romantic suitor, the Colonel is melancholy, taciturn, cancels expeditions, intrudes at inconvenient moments, and speaks only to Elinor, not to Marianne.
Elinor started a letter to her mother but was interrupted by the arrival of Colonel Brandon, who was very desirous of finding Elinor alone. Warning her that she would find him "a very awkward narrator," he began to tell her about Eliza, a girl who "in some measure" resembled Marianne.
Brandon told Elinor that he had been worried that Willoughby was using Marianne as he had used the younger Eliza. He had seen Willoughby recently, and challenged him to a duel, but both “returned unwounded.”
He tells Elinor about it only because he wants to prevent Willoughby from harming Marianne. During Marianne's illness, he remains devotedly in the background, helping whenever he can. He offers to fetch Mrs. Dashwood to Cleveland and on the journey back confesses his love for Marianne.
As Marianne grieves, Colonel Brandon visits and reveals to Elinor that Willoughby seduced and abandoned Brandon's young ward, Miss Eliza Williams, who has his child. Willoughby's aunt subsequently disinherited him, and so, in great personal debt, he chose to marry Miss Grey for her money.
In order to explain, he has to tell Marianne about a woman named Eliza, whom he had been in love with a long time ago. Eliza and Brandon were deeply in love, but she was married against her will to Brandon’s brother.
