The Mysteries of Udolpho

Emily, in extreme vexation, now rose from her chair, 'I must be gone,'

said she, 'the storm is over.'

'Stay, Emily, stay, mademoiselle St. Aubert!' said Valancourt, summoning

all his resolution, 'I will no longer distress you by my presence.

Forgive me, that I did not sooner obey you, and, if you can, sometimes,

pity one, who, in losing you--has lost all hope of peace! May you be

happy, Emily, however wretched I remain, happy as my fondest wish would

have you!' His voice faltered with the last words, and his countenance changed,

while, with a look of ineffable tenderness and grief, he gazed upon her

for an instant, and then quitted the cottage.

'Dear heart! dear heart!' cried Theresa, following him to the door,

'why, Monsieur Valancourt! how it rains! what a night is this to turn

him out in! Why it will give him his death; and it was but now you was

crying, mademoiselle, because he was dead. Well! young ladies do change

their mind in a minute, as one may say!'

Emily made no reply, for she heard not what was said, while, lost in

sorrow and thought, she remained in her chair by the fire, with her eyes

fixed, and the image of Valancourt still before them.

'M. Valancourt is sadly altered! madam,' said Theresa; 'he looks so thin

to what he used to do, and so melancholy, and then he wears his arm in a

sling.' Emily raised her eyes at these words, for she had not observed this last

circumstance, and she now did not doubt, that Valancourt had received

the shot of her gardener at Tholouse; with this conviction her pity for

him returning, she blamed herself for having occasioned him to leave the

cottage, during the storm.

Soon after her servants arrived with the carriage, and Emily, having

censured Theresa for her thoughtless conversation to Valancourt, and

strictly charging her never to repeat any hints of the same kind to him,

withdrew to her home, thoughtful and disconsolate.

Meanwhile, Valancourt had returned to a little inn of the village,

whither he had arrived only a few moments before his visit to Theresa's

cottage, on the way from Tholouse to the chateau of the Count de

Duvarney, where he had not been since he bade adieu to Emily at

Chateau-le-Blanc, in the neighbourhood of which he had lingered for a

considerable time, unable to summon resolution enough to quit a place,

that contained the object most dear to his heart. There were times,

indeed, when grief and despair urged him to appear again before Emily,

and, regardless of his ruined circumstances, to renew his suit. Pride,

however, and the tenderness of his affection, which could not long

endure the thought of involving her in his misfortunes, at length, so

far triumphed over passion, that he relinquished this desperate design,

and quitted Chateau-le-Blanc.