第38章

'Let me not waste these moments,' said St.Aubert, recovering himself, 'I have much to say.There is a circumstance of solemn consequence, which I have to mention, and a solemn promise to obtain from you; when this is done I shall be easier.You have observed, my dear, how anxious I am to reach home, but know not all my reasons for this.Listen to what I am going to say.--Yet stay--before I say more give me this promise, a promise made to your dying father!'--St.

Aubert was interrupted; Emily, struck by his last words, as if for the first time, with a conviction of his immediate danger, raised her head; her tears stopped, and, gazing at him for a moment with an expression of unutterable anguish, a slight convulsion seized her, and she sunk senseless in her chair.St.Aubert's cries brought La Voisin and his daughter to the room, and they administered every means in their power to restore her, but, for a considerable time, without effect.When she recovered, St.Aubert was so exhausted by the scene he had witnessed, that it was many minutes before he had strength to speak; he was, however, somewhat revived by a cordial, which Emily gave him; and, being again alone with her, he exerted himself to tranquilize her spirits, and to offer her all the comfort of which her situation admitted.She threw herself into his arms, wept on his neck, and grief made her so insensible to all he said, that he ceased to offer the alleviations, which he himself could not, at this moment, feel, and mingled his silent tears with hers.

Recalled, at length, to a sense of duty, she tried to spare her father from a farther view of her suffering; and, quitting his embrace, dried her tears, and said something, which she meant for consolation.'My dear Emily,' replied St.Aubert, 'my dear child, we must look up with humble confidence to that Being, who has protected and comforted us in every danger, and in every affliction we have known; to whose eye every moment of our lives has been exposed; he will not, he does not, forsake us now; I feel his consolations in my heart.I shall leave you, my child, still in his care; and, though Idepart from this world, I shall be still in his presence.Nay, weep not again, my Emily.In death there is nothing new, or surprising, since we all know, that we are born to die; and nothing terrible to those, who can confide in an all-powerful God.Had my life been spared now, after a very few years, in the course of nature, I must have resigned it; old age, with all its train of infirmity, its privations and its sorrows, would have been mine; and then, at last, death would have come, and called forth the tears you now shed.

Rather, my child, rejoice, that I am saved from such suffering, and that I am permitted to die with a mind unimpaired, and sensible of the comforts of faith and resignation.' St.Aubert paused, fatigued with speaking.Emily again endeavoured to assume an air of composure; and, in replying to what he had said, tried to sooth him with a belief, that he had not spoken in vain.

When he had reposed a while, he resumed the conversation.'Let me return,' said he, 'to a subject, which is very near my heart.I said I had a solemn promise to receive from you; let me receive it now, before I explain the chief circumstance which it concerns; there are others, of which your peace requires that you should rest in ignorance.Promise, then, that you will perform exactly what I shall enjoin.'

Emily, awed by the earnest solemnity of his manner, dried her tears, that had begun again to flow, in spite of her efforts to suppress them; and, looking eloquently at St.Aubert, bound herself to do whatever he should require by a vow, at which she shuddered, yet knew not why.

He proceeded: 'I know you too well, my Emily, to believe, that you would break any promise, much less one thus solemnly given; your assurance gives me peace, and the observance of it is of the utmost importance to your tranquillity.Hear, then, what I am going to tell you.The closet, which adjoins my chamber at La Vallee, has a sliding board in the floor.You will know it by a remarkable knot in the wood, and by its being the next board, except one, to the wainscot, which fronts the door.At the distance of about a yard from that end, nearer the window, you will perceive a line across it, as if the plank had been joined;--the way to open it is this:--Press your foot upon the line; the end of the board will then sink, and you may slide it with ease beneath the other.Below, you will see a hollow place.' St.Aubert paused for breath, and Emily sat fixed in deep attention.'Do you understand these directions, my dear?' said he.Emily, though scarcely able to speak, assured him that she did.

'When you return home, then,' he added with a deep sigh--At the mention of her return home, all the melancholy circumstances, that must attend this return, rushed upon her fancy; she burst into convulsive grief, and St.Aubert himself, affected beyond the resistance of the fortitude which he had, at first, summoned, wept with her.After some moments, he composed himself.'My dear child,'

said he, 'be comforted.When I am gone, you will not be forsaken--Ileave you only in the more immediate care of that Providence, which has never yet forsaken me.Do not afflict me with this excess of grief; rather teach me by your example to bear my own.' He stopped again, and Emily, the more she endeavoured to restrain her emotion, found it the less possible to do so.

St.Aubert, who now spoke with pain, resumed the subject.'That closet, my dear,--when you return home, go to it; and, beneath the board I have described, you will find a packet of written papers.

Attend to me now, for the promise you have given particularly relates to what I shall direct.These papers you must burn--and, solemnly Icommand you, WITHOUT EXAMINING THEM.'