Another object soon caught her attention. She had scarcely looked at
a person who walked along the bank, with his hat, in which was the
military feather, drawn over his eyes, before, at the sound of wheels,
he suddenly turned, and she perceived that it was Valancourt himself,
who waved his hand, sprung into the road, and through the window of the
carriage put a letter into her hand. He endeavoured to smile through
the despair that overspread his countenance as she passed on. The
remembrance of that smile seemed impressed on Emily's mind for ever.
She leaned from the window, and saw him on a knoll of the broken bank,
leaning against the high trees that waved over him, and pursuing the
carriage with his eyes. He waved his hand, and she continued to gaze
till distance confused his figure, and at length another turn of the
road entirely separated him from her sight.
Having stopped to take up Signor Cavigni at a chateau on the road,
the travellers, of whom Emily was disrespectfully seated with Madame
Montoni's woman in a second carriage, pursued their way over the plains
of Languedoc. The presence of this servant restrained Emily from reading
Valancourt's letter, for she did not choose to expose the emotions it
might occasion to the observation of any person. Yet such was her wish
to read this his last communication, that her trembling hand was every
moment on the point of breaking the seal.
At length they reached the village, where they staid only to change
horses, without alighting, and it was not till they stopped to dine,
that Emily had an opportunity of reading the letter. Though she had
never doubted the sincerity of Valancourt's affection, the fresh
assurances she now received of it revived her spirits; she wept over his
letter in tenderness, laid it by to be referred to when they should be
particularly depressed, and then thought of him with much less anguish
than she had done since they parted. Among some other requests, which
were interesting to her, because expressive of his tenderness, and
because a compliance with them seemed to annihilate for a while the pain
of absence, he entreated she would always think of him at sunset. 'You
will then meet me in thought,' said he; 'I shall constantly watch the
sun-set, and I shall be happy in the belief, that your eyes are fixed
upon the same object with mine, and that our minds are conversing. You
know not, Emily, the comfort I promise myself from these moments; but I
trust you will experience it.'
It is unnecessary to say with what emotion Emily, on this evening,
watched the declining sun, over a long extent of plains, on which she
saw it set without interruption, and sink towards the province which
Valancourt inhabited. After this hour her mind became far more tranquil
and resigned, than it had been since the marriage of Montoni and her
aunt. During several days the travellers journeyed over the plains of
Languedoc; and then entering Dauphiny, and winding for some time among
the mountains of that romantic province, they quitted their carriages
and began to ascend the Alps. And here such scenes of sublimity opened
upon them as no colours of language must dare to paint! Emily's mind was
even so much engaged with new and wonderful images, that they sometimes
banished the idea of Valancourt, though they more frequently revived
it. These brought to her recollection the prospects among the Pyrenees,
which they had admired together, and had believed nothing could excel
in grandeur. How often did she wish to express to him the new emotions
which this astonishing scenery awakened, and that he could partake
of them! Sometimes too she endeavoured to anticipate his remarks, and
almost imagined him present. She seemed to have arisen into another
world, and to have left every trifling thought, every trifling
sentiment, in that below; those only of grandeur and sublimity now
dilated her mind, and elevated the affections of her heart.