ed face. She started back, then again advanced, shuddered as she
took up the skeleton hand, that lay stretched upon the quilt; then let
it drop, and then viewed the face with a long, unsettled gaze. It
was that of Madame Montoni, though so changed by illness, that the
resemblance of what it had been, could scarcely be traced in what it now
appeared. She was still alive, and, raising her heavy eyes, she turned
them on her niece.

'Where have you been so long?' said she, in the same tone, 'I
thought you had forsaken me.'

'Do you indeed live,' said Emily, at length, 'or is this but a terrible
apparition?' she received no answer, and again she snatched up the hand.
'This is substance,' she exclaimed, 'but it is cold--cold as marble!'
She let it fall. 'O, if you really live, speak!' said Emily, in a voice
of desperation, 'that I may not lose my senses--say you know me!'

'I do live,' replied Madame Montoni, 'but--I feel that I am about to
die.'

Emily clasped the hand she held, more eagerly, and groaned. They were
both silent for some moments. Then Emily endeavoured to soothe her, and
enquired what had reduced her to this present deplorable state.

Montoni, when he removed her to the turret under the improbable
suspicion of having attempted his life, had ordered the men employed on
the occasion, to observe a strict secrecy concerning her. To this he was
influenced by a double motive. He meant to debar her from the comfort
of Emily's visits, and to secure an opportunity of privately dispatching
her, should any new circumstances occur to confirm the present
suggestions of his suspecting mind. His consciousness of the hatred he
deserved it was natural enough should at first led him to attribute to
her the attempt that had been made upon his life; and, though there
was no other reason to believe that she was concerned in that atrocious
design, his suspicions remained; he continued to confine her in the
turret, under a strict guard; and, without pity or remorse, had suffered
her to lie, forlorn and neglected, under a raging fever, till it had
reduced her to the present state.

The track of blood, which Emily had seen on the stairs, had flowed from
the unbound wound of one of the men employed to carry Madame Montoni,
and which he had received in the late affray. At night these men, having
contented themselves with securing the door of their prisoner's room,
had retired from guard; and then it was, that Emily, at the time of