“These scruples are merely romantic; your own good sense, had it fairer play, would contemn them; but it is warped at present by prejudice and prepossession.”
“No, indeed!” cried she, colouring at the charge, “I may have entered too precipitately into an engagement I ought to have avoided, but it is weakness of judgment, not of heart, that disables me from retrieving my error.”
“Yet you will neither hear whither it may lead you, nor which way you may escape from it?”
“Yes, Sir,” cried she, trembling, “I am now ready to hear both.”
“Briefly, then, I will tell you. It will lead you into a family of which every individual will disdain you; it will make you inmate of a house of which no other inmate will associate with you; you will be insulted as an inferior, and reproached as an intruder; your birth will be a subject of ridicule, and your whole race only named with derision; and while the elders of the proud castle treat you with open contempt, the man for whom you suffer will not dare to support you.”
“Impossible! impossible!” cried Cecilia, with the most angry emotion; “this whole representation is exaggerated, and the latter part is utterly without foundation.”
“The latter part,” said Mr Monckton, “is of all other least disputable; the man who now dares not own, will then never venture to defend you. On the contrary, to make peace for himself, he will be the first to neglect you. The ruined estates of his ancestors will be repaired by your fortune, while the name which you carry into his family will be constantly resented as an injury; you will thus be plundered though you are scorned, and told to consider yourself honoured that they condescend to make use of you! nor here rests the evil of a forced connection with so much arrogance,—even your children, should you have any, will be educated to despise you!”
“Dreadful and horrible!” cried Cecilia;—“I can hear no more,—Oh, Mr Monckton, what a prospect have you opened to my view!”
“Fly from it, then, while it is yet in your power,—when two paths are before you, chuse not that which leads to destruction; send instantly after Delvile, and tell him you have recovered your senses.”
“I would long since have sent,—I wanted not a representation such as this,—but I know not how to direct to him, nor whither he is gone.”