ples I could recite, the recital could not now benefit you; for,
though your repentance would put an immediate end to opposition, it
would not now appease my indignation.--I will have vengeance as well as
justice.'

Another groan filled the pause which Montoni made.

'Leave the room instantly!' said he, seeming not to notice this strange
occurrence. Without power to implore his pity, she rose to go, but found
that she could not support herself; awe and terror overcame her, and she
sunk again into the chair.

'Quit my presence!' cried Montoni. 'This affectation of fear ill becomes
the heroine who has just dared to brave my indignation.'

'Did you hear nothing, Signor?' said Emily, trembling, and still unable
to leave the room.

'I heard my own voice,' rejoined Montoni, sternly.

'And nothing else?' said Emily, speaking with difficulty.--'There again!
Do you hear nothing now?'

'Obey my order,' repeated Montoni. 'And for these fool's tricks--I will
soon discover by whom they are practised.'

Emily again rose, and exerted herself to the utmost to leave the
room, while Montoni followed her; but, instead of calling aloud to his
servants to search the chamber, as he had formerly done on a similar
occurrence, passed to the ramparts.

As, in her way to the corridor, she rested for a moment at an open
casement, Emily saw a party of Montoni's troops winding down a distant
mountain, whom she noticed no further, than as they brought to her mind
the wretched prisoners they were, perhaps, bringing to the castle. At
length, having reached her apartment, she threw herself upon the couch,
overcome with the new horrors of her situation. Her thoughts lost in
tumult and perplexity, she could neither repent of, or approve, her late
conduct; she could only remember, that she was in the power of a man,
who had no principle of action--but his will; and the astonishment and
terrors of superstition, which had, for a moment, so strongly assailed
her, now yielded to those of reason.

She was, at length, roused from the reverie, which engaged her, by a
confusion of distant voices, and a clattering of hoofs, that seemed to
come, on the wind, from the courts. A sudden hope, that some good was
approaching, seized her mind, till she remembered the troops she had
observed from the casement, and concluded this to be the party, which
Annette had said were expected at Udolpho.

Soon after, she heard voices faintly from the halls, and the noise