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"Ah me!" cried Cecilia, "you have then quarrelled with your father!"
"I have!" said he; "nor does he yet know I am married: in so ed myself by all I held sacred, never to rest till I had cleared your fame, by the detection of this villainy, and then left him without further explanation"
"Oh return, then, to him directly!" cried Cecilia, "he is your father, you are bound to bear with his displeasure;--alas! had you never known me, you had never incurred it!"
"Believe me," he answered, "I am ill at ease under it: if you wish it, when you have heard o to him immediately; if not, I rite, and you shall yourself dictate what"
Cecilia thanked hied he would continue his account
"My first step, when I left the Castle, was to send a letter to my mother, in which I entreated her to set out as soon as possible for Margate, as I was detained fro e her to travel faster At Margate I hoped to be as soon as herself, if not before her"
"And why," cried Cecilia, "did you not go to town as you had promised, and accompany her?"
"I had business another way I came hither"
"Directly?"
"No; but soon"
"Where did you go first?"
"My Cecilia, it is now you must summon your fortitude: I left my father without an explanation onhis authority, he had unwarily named his informant"
"Well!"
"That infor pretended friend, Mr Monckton!"
"So I feared!" said Cecilia, whose blood now ran cold through her veins with sudden and new apprehensions
"I rode to the Grove, on hack-horses, and on a full gallop the whole way I got to hi I was shewn into his library I told him my errand--You look pale, my love? You are not well?--"
Cecilia, too sick for speech, leant her head upon a table Delvile was going to call for help; but she put her hand upon his ar she was only mentally affected, he rested, and endeavoured by every possible ain raised her head, faintly saying, "I am sorry I interrupted you; but the conclusion I already know,--Mr Monckton is dead!"
"Not dead," cried he; "dangerously, indeed, wounded, but thank heaven, not actually dead!"