ng, and then again--perceived
only a dead and dreary silence! But, when you opened the door of the
pavilion, and the darkness prevented my distinguishing with certainty,
whether it was my love--my heart beat so strongly with hopes and fears,
that I could not speak. The instant I heard the plaintive accents of
your voice, my doubts vanished, but not my fears, till you spoke of
me; then, losing the apprehension of alarming you in the excess of my
emotion, I could no longer be silent. O Emily! these are moments, in
which joy and grief struggle so powerfully for pre-eminence, that the
heart can scarcely support the contest!'

Emily's heart acknowledged the truth of this assertion, but the joy
she felt on thus meeting Valancourt, at the very moment when she was
lamenting, that they must probably meet no more, soon melted into grief,
as reflection stole over her thoughts, and imagination prompted visions
of the future. She struggled to recover the calm dignity of mind, which
was necessary to support her through this last interview, and which
Valancourt found it utterly impossible to attain, for the transports of
his joy changed abruptly into those of suffering, and he expressed in
the most impassioned language his horror of this separation, and his
despair of their ever meeting again. Emily wept silently as she listened
to him, and then, trying to command her own distress, and to sooth his,
she suggested every circumstance that could lead to hope. But the energy
of his fears led him instantly to detect the friendly fallacies, which
she endeavoured to impose on herself and him, and also to conjure up
illusions too powerful for his reason.

'You are going from me,' said he, 'to a distant country, O how
distant!--to new society, new friends, new admirers, with people too,
who will try to make you forget me, and to promote new connections! How
can I know this, and not know, that you will never return for me--never
can be mine.' His voice was stifled by sighs.

'You believe, then,' said Emily, 'that the pangs I suffer proceed from a
trivial and temporary interest; you believe--'

'Suffer!' interrupted Valancourt, 'suffer for me! O Emily--how
sweet--how bitter are those words; what comfort, what anguish do they
give! I ought not to doubt the steadiness of your affection, yet such
is the inconsistency of real love, that it is always awake to suspicion,
however unreasonable; always requiring new assurances from the object
of its