Cecilia grew dreadfully terrified; something strange and most alarming she was sure must have happened, but _what_, she had no means to know, nor courage, nor even words to enquire. Delvile, at length, the first hurry of his spirits abating, became more coherent and considerate: and looking anxiously at her, said, “Why this silence, my Cecilia?” “I know not!” said she, endeavouring to recover herself, “but your coming was unexpected: I was just writing to you at Margate.” “Write still, then; but direct to Ostend; I shall be quicker than the post; and I would not lose a letter--a line--a word from you, for all the world can offer me!” “Quicker than the post?” cried Cecilia; “but how can Mrs Delvile--” she stopt; not knowing what she might venture to ask. “She is now on the road to Margate; I hope to be there to receive her. I mean but to bid you adieu, and be gone.” Cecilia made no answer; she was more and more astonished, more and more confounded. “You are thoughtful?” said he, with tenderness; “are you unhappy?--sweetest Cecilia! most excellent of human creatures! if I have made you unhappy--and I must!--it is inevitable!--” “Oh Delvile!” cried she, now assuming more courage, “why will you not speak to me openly?--something, I see, is wrong; may I not hear it? may I not tell you, at least, my concern that any thing has distressed you?” “You are too good!” cried he; “to deserve you is not possible, but to afflict you is inhuman!” “Why so?” cried she, more chearfully; “must I not share the common lot? or expect the whole world to be new modelled, lest I should meet in it any thing but happiness?” “There is not, indeed, much danger! Have you pen and ink here?” She brought them to him immediately, with paper. “You have been writing to me, you say?--I will begin a letter myself.” “To me?” cried she. He made no answer, but took up the pen, and wrote a few words, and then, flinging it down, said, “Fool!--I could have done this without coming!” “May I look at it?” said she; and, finding he made no opposition, advanced and read. _I fear to alarm you by rash precipitation,--I fear to alarm you by lingering suspense,--but all is not well--_ “Fear nothing!” cried she, turning to him with the kindest earnestness; “tell me, whatever it may be!--Am I not your wife? bound by every tie divine and human to share in all your sorrows, if, unhappily, I cannot mitigate them!” “Since you allow me,” cried he, gratefully, “so sweet a claim, a claim to which all others yield, and which if you repent not giving me, will make all others nearly immaterial to me,--I will own to you that all, indeed, is not well! I have been hasty,--you will blame me; I deserve, indeed, to be blamed!--entrusted with your peace and happiness, to suffer rage, resentment, violence, to make me forego what I owed to such a deposite!--If your blame, however, stops short of repentance--but it cannot!”