The Mysteries of Udolpho

Another object soon caught her attention. She had scarcely looked at

a person who walked along the bank, with his hat, in which was the

military feather, drawn over his eyes, before, at the sound of wheels,

he suddenly turned, and she perceived that it was Valancourt himself,

who waved his hand, sprung into the road, and through the window of the

carriage put a letter into her hand. He endeavoured to smile through

the despair that overspread his countenance as she passed on. The

remembrance of that smile seemed impressed on Emily's mind for ever.

She leaned from the window, and saw him on a knoll of the broken bank,

leaning against the high trees that waved over him, and pursuing the

carriage with his eyes. He waved his hand, and she continued to gaze

till distance confused his figure, and at length another turn of the

road entirely separated him from her sight.

Having stopped to take up Signor Cavigni at a chateau on the road,

the travellers, of whom Emily was disrespectfully seated with Madame

Montoni's woman in a second carriage, pursued their way over the plains

of Languedoc. The presence of this servant restrained Emily from reading

Valancourt's letter, for she did not choose to expose the emotions it

might occasion to the observation of any person. Yet such was her wish

to read this his last communication, that her trembling hand was every

moment on the point of breaking the seal.

At length they reached the village, where they staid only to change

horses, without alighting, and it was not till they stopped to dine,

that Emily had an opportunity of reading the letter. Though she had

never doubted the sincerity of Valancourt's affection, the fresh

assurances she now received of it revived her spirits; she wept over his

letter in tenderness, laid it by to be referred to when they should be

particularly depressed, and then thought of him with much less anguish

than she had done since they parted. Among some other requests, which

were interesting to her, because expressive of his tenderness, and

because a compliance with them seemed to annihilate for a while the pain

of absence, he entreated she would always think of him at sunset. 'You

will then meet me in thought,' said he; 'I shall constantly watch the

sun-set, and I shall be happy in the belief, that your eyes are fixed

upon the same object with mine, and that our minds are conversing. You

know not, Emily, the comfort I promise myself from these moments; but I

trust you will experience it.'

It is unnecessary to say with what emotion Emily, on this evening,

watched the declining sun, over a long extent of plains, on which she

saw it set without interruption, and sink towards the province which

Valancourt inhabited. After this hour her mind became far more tranquil

and resigned, than it had been since the marriage of Montoni and her

aunt. During several days the travellers journeyed over the plains of

Languedoc; and then entering Dauphiny, and winding for some time among

the mountains of that romantic province, they quitted their carriages

and began to ascend the Alps. And here such scenes of sublimity opened

upon them as no colours of language must dare to paint! Emily's mind was

even so much engaged with new and wonderful images, that they sometimes

banished the idea of Valancourt, though they more frequently revived

it. These brought to her recollection the prospects among the Pyrenees,

which they had admired together, and had believed nothing could excel

in grandeur. How often did she wish to express to him the new emotions

which this astonishing scenery awakened, and that he could partake

of them! Sometimes too she endeavoured to anticipate his remarks, and

almost imagined him present. She seemed to have arisen into another

world, and to have left every trifling thought, every trifling

sentiment, in that below; those only of grandeur and sublimity now

dilated her mind, and elevated the affections of her heart.