“Did he, then, never hint it to you?”
“Oh distraction!” cried Delvile, “what horrible confirmation is coming!” and again he walked away, as if wanting courage to hear her.
Cecilia was too much shocked to force upon him her explanation; but presently returning to her, he said, “you, only, could have made this credible!”
“Had you, then, actually heard it?”
“Oh I had heard it as the most infamous of falsehoods! my heart swelled with indignation at so villainous a calumny, and had it not come from my father, my resentment at it had been inveterate!”
“Alas!” cried Cecilia, “the fact is undeniable! yet the circumstances you may have heard with it, are I doubt not exaggerated.”
“Exaggerated indeed!” he answered; “I was told you had been surprised concealed with Belfield in a back room, I was told that your parental fortune was totally exhausted, and that during your minority you had been a dealer with Jews!—I was told all this by my father; you may believe I had else not easily been made hear it!”
“Yet thus far,” said she, “he told you but what is true; though—”
“True!” interrupted Delvile, with a start almost frantic. “Oh never, then, was truth so scandalously wronged!—I denied the whole charge!-I disbelieved every syllable!—I pledged my own honour to prove every assertion false!”
“Generous Delvile!” cried Cecilia, melting into tears, “this is what I expected from you! and, believe me, in your integrity my reliance had been similar!”