r forced marriage with the
Count could there be solemnized with the secrecy, which was necessary
to the honour of Montoni. The little spirit, which this reprieve had
recalled, now began to fail, and, when Emily reached the shore, her mind
had sunk into all its former depression.

Montoni did not embark on the Brenta, but pursued his way in carriages
across the country, towards the Apennine; during which journey, his
manner to Emily was so particularly severe, that this alone would have
confirmed her late conjecture, had any such confirmation been necessary.
Her senses were now dead to the beautiful country, through which she
travelled. Sometimes she was compelled to smile at the naivete of
Annette, in her remarks on what she saw, and sometimes to sigh, as a
scene of peculiar beauty recalled Valancourt to her thoughts, who was
indeed seldom absent from them, and of whom she could never hope to hear
in the solitude, to which she was hastening.

At length, the travellers began to ascend among the Apennines. The
immense pine-forests, which, at that period, overhung these mountains,
and between which the road wound, excluded all view but of the cliffs
aspiring above, except, that, now and then, an opening through the dark
woods allowed the eye a momentary glimpse of the country below. The
gloom of these shades, their solitary silence, except when the breeze
swept over their summits, the tremendous precipices of the mountains,
that came partially to the eye, each assisted to raise the solemnity of
Emily's feelings into awe; she saw only images of gloomy grandeur, or of
dreadful sublimity, around her; other images, equally gloomy and equally
terrible, gleamed on her imagination. She was going she scarcely
knew whither, under the dominion of a person, from whose arbitrary
disposition she had already suffered so much, to marry, perhaps, a man
who possessed neither her affection, or esteem; or to endure, beyond the
hope of succour, whatever punishment revenge, and that Italian revenge,
might dictate.--The more she considered what might be the motive of the
journey, the more she became convinced, that it was for the purpose of
concluding her nuptials with Count Morano, with that secrecy, which
her resolute resistance had made necessary to the honour, if not to
the safety, of Montoni. From the deep solitudes, into which she was
immerging, and from the gloomy castle, of which she had heard
some mysterious hints, her sick heart reco