into a clandestine scheme! betrayed by those I have trusted, discovered
by those I have not thought of, exposed to the cruellest alarms, and
defenceless from the most shocking attacks!--Such has been the life I
have led since the moment I first consented to a private engagement!--
Ah Delvile! your mother, in her tenderness, forgot her dignity, or she
would not have concurred in an action which to such disgrace made me
liable!"



CHAPTER iv.

A DELIBERATION.

It was necessary, however, not to moralize, but to act; Cecilia had
undertaken to give her answer in a week, and the artful attorney had
drawn from her an acknowledgment of her situation, by which he might
claim it yet sooner.

The law-suit with which she was threatened for the arrears of eight
months, alarmed her not, though it shocked her, as she was certain she
could prove her marriage so much later.

It was easy to perceive that this man had been sent with a view of
working from her a confession, and terrifying from her some money; the
confession, indeed, in conscience and honesty she could not wholly
elude, but she had suffered too often by a facility in parting with
money to be there easily duped.

Nothing, however, was more true, than that she now lived upon an estate