The Mysteries of Udolpho

He wears the rose of youth upon his cheek.

SHAKESPEARE

We now return to Valancourt, who, it may be remembered, remained

at Tholouse, some time after the departure of Emily, restless and

miserable. Each morrow that approached, he designed should carry

him from thence; yet to-morrow and to-morrow came, and still saw him

lingering in the scene of his former happiness. He could not immediately

tear himself from the spot, where he had been accustomed to converse

with Emily, or from the objects they had viewed together, which appeared

to him memorials of her affection, as well as a kind of surety for its

faithfulness; and, next to the pain of bidding her adieu, was that of

leaving the scenes which so powerfully awakened her image.

Sometimes he had bribed a servant, who had been left in the care of Madame Montoni's

chateau, to permit him to visit the gardens, and there he would wander,

for hours together, rapt in a melancholy, not unpleasing. The terrace,

and the pavilion at the end of it, where he had taken leave of Emily, on

the eve of her departure from Tholouse, were his most favourite haunts.

There, as he walked, or leaned from the window of the building, he would

endeavour to recollect all she had said, on that night; to catch the

tones of her voice, as they faintly vibrated on his memory, and to

remember the exact expression of her countenance, which sometimes came

suddenly to his fancy, like a vision; that beautiful countenance, which

awakened, as by instantaneous magic, all the tenderness of his heart,

and seemed to tell with irresistible eloquence--that he had lost her

forever!

At these moments, his hurried steps would have discovered to a

spectator the despair of his heart. The character of Montoni, such as

he had received from hints, and such as his fears represented it, would

rise to his view, together with all the dangers it seemed to threaten

to Emily and to his love. He blamed himself, that he had not urged these

more forcibly to her, while it might have been in his power to detain

her, and that he had suffered an absurd and criminal delicacy, as he

termed it, to conquer so soon the reasonable arguments he had opposed to

this journey.

Any evil, that might have attended their marriage, seemed

so inferior to those, which now threatened their love, or even to the

sufferings, that absence occasioned, that he wondered how he could have

ceased to urge his suit, till he had convinced her of its propriety; and

he would certainly now have followed her to Italy, if he could have been

spared from his regiment for so long a journey. His regiment, indeed,

soon reminded him, that he had other duties to attend, than those of

love.