The Mysteries of Udolpho

Passing hastily the gate leading from the court into the gardens, she

hurried up the great avenue, scarcely permitting her memory to dwell for

a moment on the circumstance of her having here parted with Valancourt,

and soon quitted this for other walks less interesting to her heart.

These brought her, at length, to the flight of steps, that led from the

lower garden to the terrace, on seeing which, she became agitated,

and hesitated whether to ascend, but, her resolution returning, she

proceeded. 'Ah!' said Emily, as she ascended, 'these are the same high trees, that

used to wave over the terrace, and these the same flowery thickets--the

liburnum, the wild rose, and the cerinthe--which were wont to grow

beneath them!

Ah! and there, too, on that bank, are the very plants,

which Valancourt so carefully reared!--O, when last I saw them!'--she

checked the thought, but could not restrain her tears, and, after

walking slowly on for a few moments, her agitation, upon the view of

this well-known scene, increased so much, that she was obliged to stop,

and lean upon the wall of the terrace. It was a mild, and beautiful

evening.

The sun was setting over the extensive landscape, to which his

beams, sloping from beneath a dark cloud, that overhung the west,

gave rich and partial colouring, and touched the tufted summits of the

groves, that rose from the garden below, with a yellow gleam. Emily and

Valancourt had often admired together this scene, at the same hour; and

it was exactly on this spot, that, on the night preceding her departure

for Italy, she had listened to his remonstrances against the journey,

and to the pleadings of passionate affection. Some observations, which

she made on the landscape, brought this to her remembrance, and with it

all the minute particulars of that conversation;--the alarming doubts he

had expressed concerning Montoni, doubts, which had since been fatally

confirmed; the reasons and entreaties he had employed to prevail with

her to consent to an immediate marriage; the tenderness of his love,

the paroxysms of this grief, and the conviction that he had repeatedly

expressed, that they should never meet again in happiness! All these

circumstances rose afresh to her mind, and awakened the various emotions

she had then suffered.

Her tenderness for Valancourt became as powerful

as in the moments, when she thought, that she was parting with him and

happiness together, and when the strength of her mind had enabled her to

triumph over present suffering, rather than to deserve the reproach

of her conscience by engaging in a clandestine marriage.--'Alas!' said

Emily, as these recollections came to her mind, 'and what have I gained

by the fortitude I then practised?--am I happy now?--He said, we should

meet no more in happiness; but, O! he little thought his own misconduct

would separate us, and lead to the very evil he then dreaded!'