The Mysteries of Udolpho

Ah why did Fate his steps decoy

In stormy paths to roam,

Remote from all congenial joy!

BEATTIE

Emily, mean while, was still suffering anxiety as to the fate of

Valancourt; but Theresa, having, at length, found a person, whom she

could entrust on her errand to the steward, informed her, that the

messenger would return on the following day; and Emily promised to be at

the cottage, Theresa being too lame to attend her.

In the evening, therefore, Emily set out alone for the cottage, with a

melancholy foreboding, concerning Valancourt, while, perhaps, the gloom

of the hour might contribute to depress her spirits. It was a grey

autumnal evening towards the close of the season; heavy mists partially

obscured the mountains, and a chilling breeze, that sighed among the

beech woods, strewed her path with some of their last yellow leaves.

\These, circling in the blast and foretelling the death of the year,

gave an image of desolation to her mind, and, in her fancy, seemed to

announce the death of Valancourt. Of this she had, indeed, more than

once so strong a presentiment, that she was on the point of returning

home, feeling herself unequal to an encounter with the certainty she

anticipated, but, contending with her emotions, she so far commanded

them, as to be able to proceed.

While she walked mournfully on, gazing on the long volumes of vapour,

that poured upon the sky, and watching the swallows, tossed along the

wind, now disappearing among tempestuous clouds, and then emerging,

for a moment, in circles upon the calmer air, the afflictions and

vicissitudes of her late life seemed pourtrayed in these fleeting

images;--thus had she been tossed upon the stormy sea of misfortune for

the last year, with but short intervals of peace, if peace that could be

called, which was only the delay of evils. And now, when she had escaped

from so many dangers, was become independent of the will of those, who

had oppressed her, and found herself mistress of a large fortune, now,

when she might reasonably have expected happiness, she perceived that

she was as distant from it as ever.

She would have accused herself

of weakness and ingratitude in thus suffering a sense of the various

blessings she possessed to be overcome by that of a single misfortune,

had this misfortune affected herself alone; but, when she had wept for

Valancourt even as living, tears of compassion had mingled with those

of regret, and while she lamented a human being degraded to vice, and

consequently to misery, reason and humanity claimed these tears, and

fortitude had not yet taught her to separate them from those of love; in

the present moments, however, it was not the certainty of his guilt, but

the apprehension of his death (of a death also, to which she herself,

however innocently, appeared to have been in some degree instrumental)

that oppressed her.