The Mysteries of Udolpho

'During her illness, she has sometimes named you,' resumed the abbess;

'perhaps, it would comfort her to see you; when her present visitors

have left her, we will go to her chamber, if the scene will not be

too melancholy for your spirits. But, indeed, to such scenes, however

painful, we ought to accustom ourselves, for they are salutary to the

soul, and prepare us for what we are ourselves to suffer.'

Emily became grave and thoughtful; for this conversation brought to her

recollection the dying moments of her beloved father, and she wished

once more to weep over the spot, where his remains were buried.

During the silence, which followed the abbess' speech, many minute

circumstances attending his last hours occurred to her--his emotion on

perceiving himself to be in the neighbourhood of Chateau-le-Blanc--his

request to be interred in a particular spot in the church of this

monastery--and the solemn charge he had delivered to her to destroy

certain papers, without examining them.--She recollected also the

mysterious and horrible words in those manuscripts, upon which her eye

had involuntarily glanced; and, though they now, and, indeed, whenever

she remembered them, revived an excess of painful curiosity, concerning

their full import, and the motives for her father's command, it was

ever her chief consolation, that she had strictly obeyed him in this

particular.

Little more was said by the abbess, who appeared too much affected by

the subject she had lately left, to be willing to converse, and her

companions had been for some time silent from the same cause, when this

general reverie was interrupted by the entrance of a stranger, Monsieur

Bonnac, who had just quitted the chamber of sister Agnes. He appeared

much disturbed, but Emily fancied, that his countenance had more the

expression of horror, than of grief. Having drawn the abbess to a

distant part of the room, he conversed with her for some time, during

which she seemed to listen with earnest attention, and he to speak

with caution, and a more than common degree of interest. When he had

concluded, he bowed silently to the rest of the company, and quitted the

room. The abbess, soon after, proposed going to the chamber of sister

Agnes, to which Emily consented, though not without some reluctance, and

Lady Blanche remained with the boarders below.

At the door of the chamber they met the confessor, whom, as he lifted

up his head on their approach, Emily observed to be the same that had

attended her dying father; but he passed on, without noticing her, and

they entered the apartment, where, on a mattress, was laid sister Agnes,

with one nun watching in the chair beside her. Her countenance was so

much changed, that Emily would scarcely have recollected her, had she

not been prepared to do so: it was ghastly, and overspread with gloomy

horror; her dim and hollow eyes were fixed on a crucifix, which she

held upon her bosom; and she was so much engaged in thought, as not to

perceive the abbess and Emily, till they stood at the bed-side. Then,

turning her heavy eyes, she fixed them, in wild horror, upon Emily, and,

screaming, exclaimed, 'Ah! that vision comes upon me in my dying hours!'