But still his fancy wandered among the
scenes, which had witnessed his early love, and, on his way to
Gascony, he stopped at Tholouse, where he remained when Emily arrived,
concealing, yet indulging his melancholy in the gardens, where he had
formerly passed with her so many happy hours; often recurring, with vain
regret, to the evening before her departure for Italy, when she had so
unexpectedly met him on the terrace, and endeavouring to recall to his
memory every word and look, which had then charmed him, the arguments
he had employed to dissuade her from the journey, and the tenderness
of their last farewel. In such melancholy recollections he had been
indulging, when Emily unexpectedly arrived to him on this very terrace,
the evening after her arrival at Tholouse. His emotions, on thus
seeing her, can scarcely be imagined; but he so far overcame the first
promptings of love, that he forbore to discover himself, and abruptly
quitted the gardens.
Still, however, the vision he had seen haunted his
mind; he became more wretched than before, and the only solace of his
sorrow was to return in the silence of the night; to follow the paths
which he believed her steps had pressed, during the day; and, to watch
round the habitation where she reposed. It was in one of these mournful
wanderings, that he had received by the fire of the gardener, who
mistook him for a robber, a wound in his arm, which had detained him
at Tholouse till very lately, under the hands of a surgeon. There,
regardless of himself and careless of his friends, whose late unkindness
had urged him to believe, that they were indifferent as to his fate,
he remained, without informing them of his situation; and now, being
sufficiently recovered to bear travelling, he had taken La Vallee in
his way to Estuviere, the Count's residence, partly for the purpose of
hearing of Emily, and of being again near her, and partly for that of
enquiring into the situation of poor old Theresa, who, he had reason to
suppose, had been deprived of her stipend, small as it was, and which
enquiry had brought him to her cottage, when Emily happened to be there.
This unexpected interview, which had at once shewn him the tenderness of
her love and the strength of her resolution, renewed all the acuteness
of the despair, that had attended their former separation, and which
no effort of reason could teach him, in these moments, to subdue. Her
image, her look, the tones of her voice, all dwelt on his fancy, as
powerfully as they had late appeared to his senses, and banished from
his heart every emotion, except those of love and despair.