The Mysteries of Udolpho

But still his fancy wandered among the

scenes, which had witnessed his early love, and, on his way to

Gascony, he stopped at Tholouse, where he remained when Emily arrived,

concealing, yet indulging his melancholy in the gardens, where he had

formerly passed with her so many happy hours; often recurring, with vain

regret, to the evening before her departure for Italy, when she had so

unexpectedly met him on the terrace, and endeavouring to recall to his

memory every word and look, which had then charmed him, the arguments

he had employed to dissuade her from the journey, and the tenderness

of their last farewel. In such melancholy recollections he had been

indulging, when Emily unexpectedly arrived to him on this very terrace,

the evening after her arrival at Tholouse. His emotions, on thus

seeing her, can scarcely be imagined; but he so far overcame the first

promptings of love, that he forbore to discover himself, and abruptly

quitted the gardens.

Still, however, the vision he had seen haunted his

mind; he became more wretched than before, and the only solace of his

sorrow was to return in the silence of the night; to follow the paths

which he believed her steps had pressed, during the day; and, to watch

round the habitation where she reposed. It was in one of these mournful

wanderings, that he had received by the fire of the gardener, who

mistook him for a robber, a wound in his arm, which had detained him

at Tholouse till very lately, under the hands of a surgeon. There,

regardless of himself and careless of his friends, whose late unkindness

had urged him to believe, that they were indifferent as to his fate,

he remained, without informing them of his situation; and now, being

sufficiently recovered to bear travelling, he had taken La Vallee in

his way to Estuviere, the Count's residence, partly for the purpose of

hearing of Emily, and of being again near her, and partly for that of

enquiring into the situation of poor old Theresa, who, he had reason to

suppose, had been deprived of her stipend, small as it was, and which

enquiry had brought him to her cottage, when Emily happened to be there.

This unexpected interview, which had at once shewn him the tenderness of

her love and the strength of her resolution, renewed all the acuteness

of the despair, that had attended their former separation, and which

no effort of reason could teach him, in these moments, to subdue. Her

image, her look, the tones of her voice, all dwelt on his fancy, as

powerfully as they had late appeared to his senses, and banished from

his heart every emotion, except those of love and despair.