The Mysteries of Udolpho

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.