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.

Meanwhile, Valancourt had returned to a little inn of the village,
whither he had arrived only a few moments before his visit to Theresa's
cottage, on the way from Tholouse to the chateau of the Count de
Duvarney, where he had not been since he bade adieu to Emily at
Chateau-le-Blanc, in the neighbourhood of which he had lingered for a
considerable time, unable to summon resolution enough to quit a place,
that contained the object most dear to his heart. There were times,
indeed, when grief and despair urged him to appear again before Emily,
and, regardless of his ruined circumstances, to renew his suit. Pride,
however, and the tenderness of his affection, which could not long
endure the thought of involving her in his misfortunes, at length, so
far triumphed over passion, that he relinquished this desperate design,
and quitted Chateau-le-Blanc. 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,