'Emily,' said Valancourt, no longer master of his emotions, 'is it thus you meet him, whom once you meant to honour with your hand--thus you meet him, who has loved you--suffered for you?--Yet what do Isay? Pardon me, pardon me, mademoiselle St.Aubert, I know not what I utter.I have no longer any claim upon your remembrance--I have forfeited every pretension to your esteem, your love.Yes! let me not forget, that I once possessed your affections, though to know that I have lost them, is my severest affliction.Affliction--do Icall it!--that is a term of mildness.'
'Dear heart!' said Theresa, preventing Emily from replying, 'talk of once having her affections! Why, my dear young lady loves you now, better than she does any body in the whole world, though she pretends to deny it.'
'This is insupportable!' said Emily; 'Theresa, you know not what you say.Sir, if you respect my tranquillity, you will spare me from the continuance of this distress.'
'I do respect your tranquillity too much, voluntarily to interrupt it,' replied Valancourt, in whose bosom pride now contended with tenderness; 'and will not be a voluntary intruder.I would have entreated a few moments attention--yet I know not for what purpose.
You have ceased to esteem me, and to recount to you my sufferings will degrade me more, without exciting even your pity.Yet I have been, O Emily! I am indeed very wretched!' added Valancourt, in a voice, that softened from solemnity into grief.
'What! is my dear young master going out in all this rain!' said Theresa.'No, he shall not stir a step.Dear! dear! to see how gentlefolks can afford to throw away their happiness! Now, if you were poor people, there would be none of this.To talk of unworthiness, and not caring about one another, when I know there are not such a kind-hearted lady and gentleman in the whole province, nor any that love one another half so well, if the truth was spoken!'
Emily, in extreme vexation, now rose from her chair, 'I must be gone,' said she, 'the storm is over.'
'Stay, Emily, stay, mademoiselle St.Aubert!' said Valancourt, summoning all his resolution, 'I will no longer distress you by my presence.Forgive me, that I did not sooner obey you, and, if you can, sometimes, pity one, who, in losing you--has lost all hope of peace! May you be happy, Emily, however wretched I remain, happy as my fondest wish would have you!'
His voice faltered with the last words, and his countenance changed, while, with a look of ineffable tenderness and grief, he gazed upon her for an instant, and then quitted the cottage.
'Dear heart! dear heart!' cried Theresa, following him to the door, 'why, Monsieur Valancourt! how it rains! what a night is this to turn him out in! Why it will give him his death; and it was but now you was crying, mademoiselle, because he was dead.Well! young ladies do change their mind in a minute, as one may say!'
Emily made no reply, for she heard not what was said, while, lost in sorrow and thought, she remained in her chair by the fire, with her eyes fixed, and the image of Valancourt still before them.
'M.Valancourt is sadly altered! madam,' said Theresa; 'he looks so thin to what he used to do, and so melancholy, and then he wears his arm in a sling.'
Emily raised her eyes at these words, for she had not observed this last circumstance, and she now did not doubt, that Valancourt had received the shot of her gardener at Tholouse; with this conviction her pity for him returning, she blamed herself for having occasioned him to leave the cottage, during the storm.
Soon after her servants arrived with the carriage, and Emily, having censured Theresa for her thoughtless conversation to Valancourt, and strictly charging her never to repeat any hints of the same kind to him, withdrew to her home, thoughtful and disconsolate.