be directed by his advice upon every subject but
one, and assured him of the pleasure, with which she should, at some
future period, accept the invitation of the Countess and himself--If
Mons. Du Pont was not at the chateau.

The Count smiled at this condition. 'Be it so,' said he, 'meanwhile the
convent is so near the chateau, that my daughter and I shall often
visit you; and if, sometimes, we should dare to bring you another
visitor--will you forgive us?'

Emily looked distressed, and remained silent.

'Well,' rejoined the Count, 'I will pursue this subject no further, and
must now entreat your forgiveness for having pressed it thus far. You
will, however, do me the justice to believe, that I have been urged only
by a sincere regard for your happiness, and that of my amiable friend
Mons. Du Pont.'

Emily, when she left the Count, went to mention her intended departure
to the Countess, who opposed it with polite expressions of regret; after
which, she sent a note to acquaint the lady abbess, that she should
return to the convent; and thither she withdrew on the evening of the
following day. M. Du Pont, in extreme regret, saw her depart, while the
Count endeavoured to cheer him with a hope, that Emily would sometimes
regard him with a more favourable eye.

She was pleased to find herself once more in the tranquil retirement
of the convent, where she experienced a renewal of all the maternal
kindness of the abbess, and of the sisterly attentions of the nuns. A
report of the late extraordinary occurrence at the chateau had already
reached them, and, after supper, on the evening of her arrival, it
was the subject of conversation in the convent parlour, where she was
requested to mention some particulars of that unaccountable event. Emily
was guarded in her conversation on this subject, and briefly related a
few circumstances concerning Ludovico, whose disappearance, her auditors
almost unanimously agreed, had been effected by supernatural means.

'A belief had so long prevailed,' said a nun, who was called sister
Frances, 'that the chateau was haunted, that I was surprised, when I
heard the Count had the temerity to inhabit it. Its former possessor,
I fear, had some deed of conscience to atone for; let us hope, that the
virtues of its present owner will preserve him from the punishment due
to the errors of the last, if, indeed, he was a criminal.'

'Of what crime, then, was he suspected?' said a Mademoiselle Feydea