evil, exalted as I shall be by the recollection of your
grief for me.'

Emily was somewhat comforted by this assurance. 'We are now parting for
ever,' said she; 'but, if my happiness is dear to you, you will always
remember, that nothing can contribute to it more, than to believe, that
you have recovered your own esteem.' Valancourt took her hand;--his eyes
were covered with tears, and the farewell he would have spoken was lost
in sighs. After a few moments, Emily said, with difficulty and emotion,
'Farewell, Valancourt, may you be happy!' She repeated her 'farewell,'
and attempted to withdraw her hand, but he still held it and bathed
it with his tears. 'Why prolong these moments?' said Emily, in a voice
scarcely audible, 'they are too painful to us both.' 'This is too--too
much,' exclaimed Valancourt, resigning her hand and throwing himself
into a chair, where he covered his face with his hands and was overcome,
for some moments, by convulsive sighs. After a long pause, during which
Emily wept in silence, and Valancourt seemed struggling with his grief,
she again rose to take leave of him. Then, endeavouring to recover his
composure, 'I am again afflicting you,' said he, 'but let the anguish I
suffer plead for me.' He then added, in a solemn voice, which frequently
trembled with the agitation of his heart, 'Farewell, Emily, you will
always be the only object of my tenderness. Sometimes you will think of
the unhappy Valancourt, and it will be with pity, though it may not be
with esteem. O! what is the whole world to me, without you--without your
esteem!' He checked himself--'I am falling again into the error I have
just lamented. I must not intrude longer upon your patience, or I shall
relapse into despair.'

He once more bade Emily adieu, pressed her hand to his lips, looked at
her, for the last time, and hurried out of the room.

Emily remained in the chair, where he had left her, oppressed with
a pain at her heart, which scarcely permitted her to breathe, and
listening to his departing steps, sinking fainter and fainter, as
he crossed the hall. She was, at length, roused by the voice of the
Countess in the garden, and, her attention being then awakened, the
first object, which struck her sight, was the vacant chair, where
Valancourt had sat. The tears, which had been, for some time, repressed
by the kind of astonishment, that followed his departure, now came to
her relief, and she was, at length, sufficiently compo