The Mysteries of Udolpho

'Let me not waste these moments,' said St. Aubert, recovering himself,

'I have much to say. There is a circumstance of solemn consequence,

which I have to mention, and a solemn promise to obtain from you; when

this is done I shall be easier. You have observed, my dear, how anxious

I am to reach home, but know not all my reasons for this. Listen to what

I am going to say.--Yet stay--before I say more give me this promise, a

promise made to your dying father!'--St. Aubert was interrupted; Emily,

struck by his last words, as if for the first time, with a conviction of

his immediate danger, raised her head; her tears stopped, and, gazing

at him for a moment with an expression of unutterable anguish, a slight

convulsion seized her, and she sunk senseless in her chair.

St. Aubert's cries brought La Voisin and his daughter to the room, and

they administered every means in their power to restore her, but, for a

considerable time, without effect. When she recovered, St. Aubert was so

exhausted by the scene he had witnessed, that it was many minutes

before he had strength to speak; he was, however, somewhat revived by

a cordial, which Emily gave him; and, being again alone with her, he

exerted himself to tranquilize her spirits, and to offer her all the

comfort of which her situation admitted. She threw herself into his

arms, wept on his neck, and grief made her so insensible to all he said,

that he ceased to offer the alleviations, which he himself could not, at

this moment, feel, and mingled his silent tears with hers. Recalled, at

length, to a sense of duty, she tried to spare her father from a farther

view of her suffering; and, quitting his embrace, dried her tears,

and said something, which she meant for consolation.

'My dear Emily,'

replied St. Aubert, 'my dear child, we must look up with humble

confidence to that Being, who has protected and comforted us in every

danger, and in every affliction we have known; to whose eye every moment

of our lives has been exposed; he will not, he does not, forsake us now;

I feel his consolations in my heart. I shall leave you, my child, still

in his care; and, though I depart from this world, I shall be still in

his presence. Nay, weep not again, my Emily. In death there is nothing

new, or surprising, since we all know, that we are born to die; and

nothing terrible to those, who can confide in an all-powerful God.

Had my life been spared now, after a very few years, in the course

of nature, I must have resigned it; old age, with all its train of

infirmity, its privations and its sorrows, would have been mine; and

then, at last, death would have come, and called forth the tears you now

shed.