He repeated his apology, and Emily then said something in reply, when
the stranger eagerly advancing, exclaimed, 'Good God! can it be--surely
I am not mistaken--ma'amselle St. Aubert?--is it not?'
'It is indeed,' said Emily, who was confirmed in her first conjecture,
for she now distinguished the countenance of Valancourt, lighted up with
still more than its usual animation. A thousand painful recollections
crowded to her mind, and the effort, which she made to support herself,
only served to increase her agitation. Valancourt, meanwhile, having
enquired anxiously after her health, and expressed his hopes, that M.
St. Aubert had found benefit from travelling, learned from the flood of
tears, which she could no longer repress, the fatal truth. He led her
to a seat, and sat down by her, while Emily continued to weep, and
Valancourt to hold the hand, which she was unconscious he had taken,
till it was wet with the tears, which grief for St. Aubert and sympathy
for herself had called forth.
'I feel,' said he at length, 'I feel how insufficient all attempt at
consolation must be on this subject. I can only mourn with you, for I
cannot doubt the source of your tears.
Would to God I were mistaken!'
Emily could still answer only by tears, till she rose, and begged they
might leave the melancholy spot, when Valancourt, though he saw her
feebleness, could not offer to detain her, but took her arm within his,
and led her from the fishing-house. They walked silently through the
woods, Valancourt anxious to know, yet fearing to ask any particulars
concerning St. Aubert; and Emily too much distressed to converse.
After some time, however, she acquired fortitude enough to speak of her
father, and to give a brief account of the manner of his death; during
which recital Valancourt's countenance betrayed strong emotion, and,
when he heard that St. Aubert had died on the road, and that Emily
had been left among strangers, he pressed her hand between his, and
involuntarily exclaimed, 'Why was I not there!' but in the next moment
recollected himself, for he immediately returned to the mention of her
father; till, perceiving that her spirits were exhausted, he gradually
changed the subject, and spoke of himself. Emily thus learned that,
after they had parted, he had wandered, for some time, along the shores
of the Mediterranean, and had then returned through Languedoc into
Gascony, which was his native province, and where he usually resided.
When he had concluded his little narrative, he sunk into a silence,
which Emily was not disposed to interrupt, and it continued, till they
reached the gate of the chateau, when he stopped, as if he had known
this to be the limit of his walk. Here, saying, that it was his
intention to return to Estuviere on the following day, he asked her if
she would permit him to take leave of her in the morning; and Emily,
perceiving that she could not reject an ordinary civility, without
expressing by her refusal an expectation of something more, was
compelled to answer, that she should be at home.