The Mysteries of Udolpho

Emily, comforted by this prospect of release, employed the present

moments in endeavouring, with conciliating care, to prevent any fatal

mischief between the persons who so lately had persecuted and insulted

her. Her spirits revived, when she heard once more the voice of song and

laughter, resounding from the grand canal, and at length entered

again between its stately piazzas. The zendaletto stopped at Montoni's

mansion, and the Count hastily led her into the hall, where Montoni took

his arm, and said something in a low voice, on which Morano kissed

the hand he held, notwithstanding Emily's effort to disengage it,

and, wishing her a good evening, with an accent and look she could not

misunderstand, returned to his zendaletto with Montoni.

Emily, in her own apartment, considered with intense anxiety all the

unjust and tyrannical conduct of Montoni, the dauntless perseverance

of Morano, and her own desolate situation, removed from her friends and

country. She looked in vain to Valancourt, confined by his profession

to a distant kingdom, as her protector; but it gave her comfort to know,

that there was, at least, one person in the world, who would sympathize

in her afflictions, and whose wishes would fly eagerly to release her.

Yet she determined not to give him unavailing pain by relating the

reasons she had to regret the having rejected his better judgment

concerning Montoni; reasons, however, which could not induce her to

lament the delicacy and disinterested affection that had made her reject

his proposal for a clandestine marriage. The approaching interview with

her uncle she regarded with some degree of hope, for she determined to

represent to him the distresses of her situation, and to entreat that he

would allow her to return to France with him and Madame Quesnel. Then,

suddenly remembering that her beloved La Vallee, her only home, was no

longer at her command, her tears flowed anew, and she feared that she

had little pity to expect from a man who, like M. Quesnel, could dispose

of it without deigning to consult with her, and could dismiss an aged

and faithful servant, destitute of either support or asylum. But, though

it was certain, that she had herself no longer a home in France, and

few, very few friends there, she determined to return, if possible,

that she might be released from the power of Montoni, whose particularly

oppressive conduct towards herself, and general character as to others,

were justly terrible to her imagination. She had no wish to reside with

her uncle, M. Quesnel, since his behaviour to her late father and to

herself, had been uniformly such as to convince her, that in flying to

him she could only obtain an exchange of oppressors; neither had she the

slightest intention of consenting to the proposal of Valancourt for an

immediate marriage, though this would give her a lawful and a generous

protector, for the chief reasons, which had formerly influenced her

conduct, still existed against it, while others, which seemed to justify

the step, would not be done away; and his interest, his fame were at all

times too dear to her, to suffer her to consent to a union, which, at

this early period of their lives, would probably defeat both. One sure,

and proper asylum, however, would still be open to her in France.

She knew that she could board in the convent, where she had formerly

experienced so much kindness, and which had an affecting and solemn

claim upon her heart, since it contained the remains of her late father.