My heart is wrung with anguish, which must increase
while your frantic behaviour shows me, more than ever, that you are no
longer the Valancourt I have been accustomed to love.”

He made no reply, but sat with his arms rested on the table and his
face concealed by his hands; while Emily stood, silent and trembling,
wretched for herself and dreading to leave him in this state of mind. “O excess of misery!” he suddenly exclaimed, “that I can never lament
my sufferings, without accusing myself, nor remember you, without
recollecting the folly and the vice, by which I have lost you! Why was
I forced to Paris, and why did I yield to allurements, which were to
make me despicable for ever! O! why cannot I look back, without
interruption, to those days of innocence and peace, the days of our
early love!”—The recollection seemed to melt his heart, and the frenzy
of despair yielded to tears. After a long pause, turning towards her
and taking her hand, he said, in a softened voice, “Emily, can you bear
that we should part—can you resolve to give up a heart, that loves you
like mine—a heart, which, though it has erred—widely erred, is not
irretrievable from error, as, you well know, it never can be
retrievable from love?” Emily made no reply, but with her tears. “Can
you,” continued he, “can you forget all our former days of happiness
and confidence—when I had not a thought, that I might wish to conceal
from you—when I had no taste—no pleasures, in which you did not
participate?”

“O do not lead me to the remembrance of those days,” said Emily,
“unless you can teach me to forget the present; I do not mean to
reproach you; if I did, I should be spared these tears; but why will
you render your present sufferings more conspicuous, by contrasting
them with your former virtues?”

“Those virtues,” said Valancourt, “might, perhaps, again be mine, if
your affection, which nurtured them, was unchanged;—but I fear, indeed,
I see, that you can no longer love me; else the happy hours, which we
have passed together, would plead for me, and you could not look back
upon them unmoved. Yet, why should I torture myself with the
remembrance—why do I linger here? Am I not ruined—would it not be
madness to involve you in my misfortunes, even if your heart was still
my own? I will not distress you further. Yet, before I go,” added he,
in a solemn voice, “let me repeat, that, whatever may be my
destiny—whatever I may be doomed to suffer, I must always love you—most
fondly love you! I am going, Emily, I am going to leave you—to leave
you, for ever!” As he spoke the last words, his voice trembled, and he
threw himself again into the chair, from which he had risen. Emily was
utterly unable to leave the room, or to say farewell. All impression of
his criminal conduct and almost of his follies was obliterated from her
mind, and she was sensible only of pity and grief. “My fortitude is gone,” said Valancourt at length; “I can no longer
even struggle to recall it. I cannot now leave you—I cannot bid you an
eternal farewell; say, at least, that you will see me once again.”
Emily’s heart was somewhat relieved by the request, and she endeavoured
to believe, that she ought not to refuse it. Yet she was embarrassed by
recollecting, that she was a visitor in the house of the Count, who
could not be pleased by the return of Valancourt. Other considerations,
however, soon overcame this, and she granted his request, on the
condition, that he would neither think of the Count, as his enemy, nor
Du Pont as his rival. He then left her, with a heart, so much lightened
by this short respite, that he almost lost every former sense of
misfortune. Emily withdrew to her own room, that she might compose her spirits and
remove the traces of her tears, which would encourage the censorious
remarks of the Countess and her favourite, as well as excite the
curiosity of the rest of the family. She found it, however, impossible
to tranquillize her mind, from which she could not expel the
remembrance of the late scene with Valancourt, or the consciousness,
that she was to see him again, on the morrow. This meeting now appeared
more terrible to her than the last, for the ingenuous confession he had
made of his ill conduct and his embarrassed circumstances, with the
strength and tenderness of affection, which this confession discovered,
had deeply impressed her, and, in spite of all she had heard and
believed to his disadvantage, her esteem began to return. It frequently
appeared to her impossible, that he could have been guilty of the
depravities, reported of him, which, if not inconsistent with his
warmth and impetuosity, were entirely so with his candour and
sensibility. Whatever was the criminality, which had given rise to the
reports, she could not now believe them to be wholly true, nor that his
heart was finally closed against the charms of virtue. The deep
consciousness, which he felt as well as expressed of his errors, seemed
to justify the opinion; and, as she understood not the instability of
youthful dispositions, when opposed by habit, and that professions
frequently deceive those, who make, as well as those, who hear them,
she might have yielded to the flattering persuasions of her own heart
and the pleadings of Valancourt, had she not been guided by the
superior prudence of the Count. He represented to her, in a clear
light, the danger of her present situation, that of listening to
promises of amendment, made under the influence of strong passion, and
the slight hope, which could attach to a connection, whose chance of
happiness rested upon the retrieval of ruined circumstances and the
reform of corrupted habits. On these accounts, he lamented, that Emily
had consented to a second interview, for he saw how much it would shake
her resolution and increase the difficulty of her conquest. Her mind was now so entirely occupied by nearer interests, that she
forgot the old housekeeper and the promised history, which so lately
had excited her curiosity, but which Dorothée was probably not very
anxious to disclose, for night came; the hours passed; and she did not
appear in Emily’s chamber. With the latter it was a sleepless and
dismal night; the more she suffered her memory to dwell on the late
scenes with Valancourt, the more her resolution declined, and she was
obliged to recollect all the arguments, which the Count had made use of
to strengthen it, and all the precepts, which she had received from her
deceased father, on the subject of self-command, to enable her to act,
with prudence and dignity, on this the most severe occasion of her
life. There were moments, when all her fortitude forsook her, and when,
remembering the confidence of former times, she thought it impossible,
that she could renounce Valancourt. His reformation then appeared
certain; the arguments of Count De Villefort were forgotten; she
readily believed all she wished, and was willing to encounter any evil,
rather than that of an immediate separation.