"Stop me not!" cried she, impatiently though faintly, "I am sick, I am
ill already,--if you detain me any longer, I shall be unable to support
myself!"

"Oh then rest on _me_!" cried he, still holding her; "rest but upon me
till the ceremony is over!--you will drive me to despair and to madness
if you leave me in this barbarous manner!"

A crowd now began to gather, and the words bride and bridegroom reached
the ears of Cecilia; who half dead with shame, with fear, and with
distress, hastily said "You are determined to make me miserable!" and
snatching away her hand, which Delvile at those words could no longer
hold, she threw herself into the carriage.

Delvile, however, jumped in after her, and with an air of authority
ordered the coachman to Pall-Mall, and then drew up the glasses, with a
look of fierceness at the mob.

Cecilia had neither spirits nor power to resist him; yet, offended by
his violence, and shocked to be thus publickly pursued by him, her
looks spoke a resentment far more mortifying than any verbal reproach.

"Inhuman Cecilia!" cried he, passionately, "to desert me at the very
altar!--to cast me off at the instant the most sacred rites were
uniting us!--and then thus to look at me!--to treat me with this
disdain at a time of such distraction!--to scorn me thus injuriously at
the moment you unjustly abandon me!"

"To how dreadful a scene," said Cecilia, recovering from her
consternation, "have you exposed me! to what shame, what indignity,