"Did he, then, see you come in?"
"I angrily demanded what he meant by thus pursuing me; he very submissively begged my pardon, and said he had had a notion I should come back, and had therefore only followed, me to see if he was right! I hesitated for an instant whether to chastise, or confide in him; but believing a few hours would make his impertinence immaterial, I did neither,--the door opened, and I came in."
He stopt; but Cecilia was too much shocked to answer him.
"Now, then," said he, "weigh your objections against the consequences which must follow. It is discovered I attended you in town; it will be presumed I had your permission for such attendance: to separate, therefore, now, will be to no purpose with respect to that delicacy which makes you wish it. It will be food for conjecture, for enquiry, for wonder, almost while both our names are remembered, and while to me it will bring the keenest misery in the severity of my disappointment, it will cast over your own conduct a veil of mystery and obscurity wholly subversive of that unclouded openness, that fair, transparent ingenuousness, by which it has hitherto been distinguished."
"Alas, then," said she, "how dreadfully have I erred, that whatever path I now take must lead me wrong!"
"You overwhelm me with grief," cried Delvile, "by finding you thus distressed, when I had hoped--Oh cruel Cecilia! how different to this did I hope to have met you!--all your doubts settled, all your fears removed, your mind perfectly composed, and ready, unreluctantly, to ratify the promise with so much sweetness accorded me!--where now are those hopes!--where now.--"
"Why will you not begone?" cried Cecilia, uneasily, "indeed it is too late to stay."
"Tell me first," cried he, with great energy, "and let good Mrs Charlton speak too,--ought not every objection to our union, however potent, to give way, without further hesitation, to the certainty that our intending it must become public? Who that hears of our meeting in London, at such a season, in such circumstances, and at such hours,--"
"And why," cried Cecilia, angrily, "do you mention them, and yet stay?"
"I must speak now," answered he with quickness, "or lose forever all that is dear to me, and add to the misery of that loss, the heart-piercing reflection of having injured her whom of all the world I most love, most value, and most revere!"
"And how injured?" cried Cecilia, half alarmed and half displeased: "Surely I must strangely have lived to fear now the voice of calumny?"