Emily listened, with mingled awe and expectation, hope and
fear; and again the melting sweetness of the lute was heard, and the
same solemn-breathing voice. Convinced that these came from an
apartment underneath, she leaned far out of her window, that she might
discover whether any light was there; but the casements below, as well
as those above, were sunk so deep in the thick walls of the castle,
that she could not see them, or even the faint ray, that probably
glimmered through their bars. She then ventured to call; but the wind
bore her voice to the other end of the terrace, and then the music was
heard as before, in the pause of the gust. Suddenly, she thought she
heard a noise in her chamber, and she drew herself within the casement;
but, in a moment after, distinguishing Annette’s voice at the door, she
concluded it was her she had heard before, and she let her in. “Move
softly, Annette, to the casement,” said she, “and listen with me; the
music is returned.” They were silent till, the measure changing,
Annette exclaimed, “Holy Virgin! I know that song well; it is a French
song, one of the favourite songs of my dear country.” This was the
ballad Emily had heard on a former night, though not the one she had
first listened to from the fishing-house in Gascony. “O! it is a
Frenchman, that sings,” said Annette: “it must be Monsieur Valancourt.”
“Hark! Annette, do not speak so loud,” said Emily, “we may be
overheard.” “What! by the Chevalier?” said Annette. “No,” replied Emily
mournfully, “but by somebody, who may report us to the Signor. What
reason have you to think it is Monsieur Valancourt, who sings? But
hark! now the voice swells louder! Do you recollect those tones? I fear
to trust my own judgment.” “I never happened to hear the Chevalier
sing, Mademoiselle,” replied Annette, who, as Emily was disappointed to
perceive, had no stronger reason for concluding this to be Valancourt,
than that the musician must be a Frenchman. Soon after, she heard the
song of the fishing-house, and distinguished her own name, which was
repeated so distinctly, that Annette had heard it also. She trembled,
sunk into a chair by the window, and Annette called aloud, “Monsieur
Valancourt! Monsieur Valancourt!” while Emily endeavoured to check her,
but she repeated the call more loudly than before, and the lute and the
voice suddenly stopped. Emily listened, for some time, in a state of
intolerable suspense; but, no answer being returned, “It does not
signify, Mademoiselle,” said Annette; “it is the Chevalier, and I will
speak to him.” “No, Annette,” said Emily, “I think I will speak myself;
if it is he, he will know my voice, and speak again.” “Who is it,” said
she, “that sings at this late hour?”

A long silence ensued, and, having repeated the question, she perceived
some faint accents, mingling in the blast, that swept by; but the
sounds were so distant, and passed so suddenly, that she could scarcely
hear them, much less distinguish the words they uttered, or recognise
the voice. After another pause, Emily called again; and again they
heard a voice, but as faintly as before; and they perceived, that there
were other circumstances, besides the strength, and direction of the
wind, to content with; for the great depth, at which the casements were
fixed in the castle walls, contributed, still more than the distance,
to prevent articulated sounds from being understood, though general
ones were easily heard. Emily, however, ventured to believe, from the
circumstance of her voice alone having been answered, that the stranger
was Valancourt, as well as that he knew her, and she gave herself up to
speechless joy. Annette, however, was not speechless. She renewed her
calls, but received no answer; and Emily, fearing, that a further
attempt, which certainly was, as present, highly dangerous, might
expose them to the guards of the castle, while it could not perhaps
terminate her suspense, insisted on Annette’s dropping the enquiry for
this night; though she determined herself to question Ludovico, on the
subject, in the morning, more urgently than she had yet done. She was
now enabled to say, that the stranger, whom she had formerly heard, was
still in the castle, and to direct Ludovico to that part of it, in
which he was confined. Emily, attended by Annette, continued at the casement, for some time,
but all remained still; they heard neither lute nor voice again, and
Emily was now as much oppressed by anxious joy, as she lately was by a
sense of her misfortunes. With hasty steps she paced the room, now half
calling on Valancourt’s name, then suddenly stopping, and now going to
the casement and listening, where, however, she heard nothing but the
solemn waving of the woods. Sometimes her impatience to speak to
Ludovico prompted her to send Annette to call him; but a sense of the
impropriety of this at midnight restrained her. Annette, meanwhile, as
impatient as her mistress, went as often to the casement to listen, and
returned almost as much disappointed. She, at length, mentioned Signor
Verezzi, and her fear, lest he should enter the chamber by the
staircase, door. “But the night is now almost past, Mademoiselle,” said
she, recollecting herself; “there is the morning light, beginning to
peep over those mountains yonder in the east.”

Emily had forgotten, till this moment, that such a person existed as
Verezzi, and all the danger that had appeared to threaten her; but the
mention of his name renewed her alarm, and she remembered the old
chest, that she had wished to place against the door, which she now,
with Annette, attempted to move, but it was so heavy, that they could
not lift it from the floor. “What is in this great old chest,
Mademoiselle,” said Annette, “that makes it so weighty?” Emily having
replied, “that she found it in the chamber, when she first came to the
castle, and had never examined it.”—“Then I will, ma’amselle,” said
Annette, and she tried to lift the lid; but this was held by a lock,
for which she had no key, and which, indeed, appeared, from its
peculiar construction, to open with a spring. The morning now glimmered
through the casements, and the wind had sunk into a calm. Emily looked
out upon the dusky woods, and on the twilight mountains, just stealing
in the eye, and saw the whole scene, after the storm, lying in profound
stillness, the woods motionless, and the clouds above, through which
the dawn trembled, scarcely appearing to move along the heavens. One
soldier was pacing the terrace beneath, with measured steps; and two,
more distant, were sunk asleep on the walls, wearied with the night’s
watch. Having inhaled, for a while, the pure spirit of the air, and of
vegetation, which the late rains had called forth; and having listened,
once more, for a note of music, she now closed the casement, and
retired to rest.