Emily followed to the parlour, where the nuns were assembled, to whom
the abbess committed her, saying, 'This is a daughter, for whom I have
much esteem; be sisters to her.'
They passed on in a train to the chapel, where the solemn devotion, with
which the service was performed, elevated her mind, and brought to it
the comforts of faith and resignation.
Twilight came on, before the abbess's kindness would suffer Emily to
depart, when she left the convent, with a heart much lighter than she
had entered it, and was reconducted by La Voisin through the woods, the
pensive gloom of which was in unison with the temper of her mind; and
she pursued the little wild path, in musing silence, till her guide
suddenly stopped, looked round, and then struck out of the path into the
high grass, saying he had mistaken the road. He now walked on quickly,
and Emily, proceeding with difficulty over the obscured and uneven
ground, was left at some distance, till her voice arrested him, who
seemed unwilling to stop, and still hurried on. 'If you are in doubt
about the way,' said Emily, 'had we not better enquire it at the chateau
yonder, between the trees?'
'No,' replied La Voisin, 'there is no occasion. When we reach that
brook, ma'amselle, (you see the light upon the water there, beyond the
woods) when we reach that brook, we shall be at home presently. I don't
know how I happened to mistake the path; I seldom come this way after
sun-set.'
'It is solitary enough,' said Emily, 'but you have no banditti here.'
'No, ma'amselle--no banditti.' 'What are you afraid of then, my good friend? you are not
superstitious?' 'No, not superstitious; but, to tell you the truth,
lady, nobody likes to go near that chateau, after dusk.' 'By whom is it
inhabited,' said Emily, 'that it is so formidable?' 'Why, ma'amselle,
it is scarcely inhabited, for our lord the Marquis, and the lord of all
these find woods, too, is dead. He had not once been in it, for these
many years, and his people, who have the care of it, live in a cottage
close by.' Emily now understood this to be the chateau, which La Voisin
had formerly pointed out, as having belonged to the Marquis Villeroi, on
the mention of which her father had appeared so much affected. '
Ah! it is a desolate place now,' continued La Voisin, 'and such a
grand, fine place, as I remember it!' Emily enquired what had occasioned
this lamentable change; but the old man was silent, and Emily, whose
interest was awakened by the fear he had expressed, and above all by
a recollection of her father's agitation, repeated the question, and
added, 'If you are neither afraid of the inhabitants, my good friend,
nor are superstitious, how happens it, that you dread to pass near that
chateau in the dark?'