Though no longer suffered to doubt that they were addressed to herself,
she was as ignorant, as before, by whom they could be written. While she
mused, she thought she heard the sound of a step without the building,
and again alarmed, she caught up her lute, and hurried away. Monsieur
and Madame St. Aubert she found in a little path that wound along the
sides of the glen.
Having reached a green summit, shadowed by palm-trees, and overlooking
the vallies and plains of Gascony, they seated themselves on the turf;
and while their eyes wandered over the glorious scene, and they inhaled
the sweet breath of flowers and herbs that enriched the grass, Emily
played and sung several of their favourite airs, with the delicacy of
expression in which she so much excelled.
Music and conversation detained them in this enchanting spot, till the
sun's last light slept upon the plains; till the white sails that glided
beneath the mountains, where the Garonne wandered, became dim, and the
gloom of evening stole over the landscape. It was a melancholy but not
unpleasing gloom. St. Aubert and his family rose, and left the place
with regret; alas! Madame St. Aubert knew not that she left it for ever.
When they reached the fishing-house she missed her bracelet, and
recollected that she had taken it from her arm after dinner, and had
left it on the table when she went to walk. After a long search, in
which Emily was very active, she was compelled to resign herself to the
loss of it. What made this bracelet valuable to her was a miniature of
her daughter to which it was attached, esteemed a striking resemblance,
and which had been painted only a few months before. When Emily was
convinced that the bracelet was really gone, she blushed, and became
thoughtful. That some stranger had been in the fishing-house, during
her absence, her lute, and the additional lines of a pencil, had already
informed her: from the purport of these lines it was not unreasonable
to believe, that the poet, the musician, and the thief were the same
person. But though the music she had heard, the written lines she had
seen, and the disappearance of the picture, formed a combination of
circumstances very remarkable, she was irresistibly restrained from
mentioning them; secretly determining, however, never again to visit the
fishing-house without Monsieur or Madame St. Aubert.
They returned pensively to the chateau, Emily musing on the incident
which had just occurred; St. Aubert reflecting, with placid gratitude,
on the blessings he possessed; and Madame St. Aubert somewhat disturbed,
and perplexed, by the loss of her daughter's picture. As they drew near
the house, they observed an unusual bustle about it; the sound of voices
was distinctly heard, servants and horses were seen passing between the
trees, and, at length, the wheels of a carriage rolled along. Having
come within view of the front of the chateau, a landau, with smoking
horses, appeared on the little lawn before it. St. Aubert perceived the
liveries of his brother-in-law, and in the parlour he found Monsieur and
Madame Quesnel already entered. They had left Paris some days before,
and were on the way to their estate, only ten leagues distant from La
Vallee, and which Monsieur Quesnel had purchased several years before
of St. Aubert.