The Mysteries of Udolpho

'Do you indeed live,' said Emily, at length, 'or is this but a terrible

apparition?' she received no answer, and again she snatched up the hand.

'This is substance,' she exclaimed, 'but it is cold--cold as marble!'

She let it fall. 'O, if you really live, speak!' said Emily, in a voice

of desperation, 'that I may not lose my senses--say you know me!' 'I do live,' replied Madame Montoni, 'but--I feel that I am about to

die.' Emily clasped the hand she held, more eagerly, and groaned. They were

both silent for some moments. Then Emily endeavoured to soothe her, and

enquired what had reduced her to this present deplorable state.

Montoni, when he removed her to the turret under the improbable

suspicion of having attempted his life, had ordered the men employed on

the occasion, to observe a strict secrecy concerning her. To this he was

influenced by a double motive. He meant to debar her from the comfort

of Emily's visits, and to secure an opportunity of privately dispatching

her, should any new circumstances occur to confirm the present

suggestions of his suspecting mind. His consciousness of the hatred he

deserved it was natural enough should at first led him to attribute to

her the attempt that had been made upon his life; and, though there

was no other reason to believe that she was concerned in that atrocious

design, his suspicions remained; he continued to confine her in the

turret, under a strict guard; and, without pity or remorse, had suffered

her to lie, forlorn and neglected, under a raging fever, till it had

reduced her to the present state.

The track of blood, which Emily had seen on the stairs, had flowed from

the unbound wound of one of the men employed to carry Madame Montoni,

and which he had received in the late affray. At night these men, having

contented themselves with securing the door of their prisoner's room,

had retired from guard; and then it was, that Emily, at the time of her

first enquiry, had found the turret so silent and deserted.

When she had attempted to open the door of the chamber, her aunt was

sleeping, and this occasioned the silence, which had contributed to

delude her into a belief, that she was no more; yet had her terror

permitted her to persevere longer in the call, she would probably

have awakened Madame Montoni, and have been spared much suffering. The

spectacle in the portal-chamber, which afterwards confirmed Emily's

horrible suspicion, was the corpse of a man, who had fallen in the

affray, and the same which had been borne into the servants' hall, where

she took refuge from the tumult. This man had lingered under his wounds

for some days; and, soon after his death, his body had been removed

on the couch, on which he died, for interment in the vault beneath the

chapel, through which Emily and Barnardine had passed to the chamber.