The little spirit,
which this reprieve had recalled, now began to fail, and, when Emily
reached the shore, her mind had sunk into all its former depression.
Montoni did not embark on the Brenta, but pursued his way in
carriages across the country, towards the Apennine; during which
journey, his manner to Emily was so particularly severe, that this
alone would have confirmed her late conjecture, had any such
confirmation been necessary. Her senses were now dead to the
beautiful country, through which she travelled. Sometimes she was
compelled to smile at the naivete of Annette, in her remarks on what
she saw, and sometimes to sigh, as a scene of peculiar beauty
recalled Valancourt to her thoughts, who was indeed seldom absent
from them, and of whom she could never hope to hear in the solitude,
to which she was hastening.
At length, the travellers began to ascend among the Apennines. The
immense pine-forests, which, at that period, overhung these
mountains, and between which the road wound, excluded all view but of
the cliffs aspiring above, except, that, now and then, an opening
through the dark woods allowed the eye a momentary glimpse of the
country below.
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