her
first enquiry, had found the turret so silent and deserted.

When she had attempted to open the door of the chamber, her aunt was
sleeping, and this occasioned the silence, which had contributed to
delude her into a belief, that she was no more; yet had her terror
permitted her to persevere longer in the call, she would probably
have awakened Madame Montoni, and have been spared much suffering. The
spectacle in the portal-chamber, which afterwards confirmed Emily's
horrible suspicion, was the corpse of a man, who had fallen in the
affray, and the same which had been borne into the servants' hall, where
she took refuge from the tumult. This man had lingered under his wounds
for some days; and, soon after his death, his body had been removed
on the couch, on which he died, for interment in the vault beneath the
chapel, through which Emily and Barnardine had passed to the chamber.

Emily, after asking Madame Montoni a thousand questions concerning
herself, left her, and sought Montoni; for the more solemn interest
she felt for her aunt, made her now regardless of the resentment her
remonstrances might draw upon herself, and of the improbability of his
granting what she meant to entreat.

'Madame Montoni is now dying, sir,' said Emily, as soon as she saw
him--'Your resentment, surely will not pursue her to the last moment!
Suffer her to be removed from that forlorn room to her own apartment,
and to have necessary comforts administered.'

'Of what service will that be, if she is dying?' said Montoni, with
apparent indifference.

'The service, at leave, of saving you, sir, from a few of those pangs
of conscience you must suffer, when you shall be in the same situation,'
said Emily, with imprudent indignation, of which Montoni soon made her
sensible, by commanding her to quit his presence. Then, forgetting her
resentment, and impressed only by compassion for the piteous state of
her aunt, dying without succour, she submitted to humble herself to
Montoni, and to adopt every persuasive means, that might induce him to
relent towards his wife.

For a considerable time he was proof against all she said, and all she
looked; but at length the divinity of pity, beaming in Emily's eyes,
seemed to touch his heart. He turned away, ashamed of his better
feelings, half sullen and half relenting; but finally consented, that
his wife should be removed to her own apartment, and that Emily should
attend her. Dreading equally, that