Emily Finds Her Murdered Aunt’s Corpse
Emily pauses before the curtain, torn between dread and a desperate wish to know what it conceals; she twice checks herself with the memory of a ghastly sight her own daring hand once unveiled in another part of the castle. Suddenly convinced that the curtain hides the body of her murdered aunt, she seizes it in a fit of desperation and draws it aside. Beyond it lies a corpse stretched on a low couch stained crimson with blood, the floor beneath similarly discolored, the features deformed by death and the face marked by more than one livid wound. Emily bends over the body with a frenzied gaze; in the next moment the lamp slips from her grasp and she falls senseless at the foot of the couch.
Emily Is Abducted by Barnardine’s Ruffians
When Emily’s senses return she is surrounded by men, among them Barnardine, who lift her from the floor and carry her along the chamber and down the staircase she had earlier ascended. At the archway they pause while one of the ruffians takes the torch from Barnardine and opens a small door cut in the great gate, the flare of the light revealing several horsemen waiting on the road. Whether revived by the fresh air or alarmed by what she sees, Emily suddenly speaks and struggles ineffectually to tear herself from the grasp of her captors. Barnardine shouts impatiently for the torch as distant voices answer, and while he hurries Emily through the gate toward the horses the ruffians argue over which mount to place her on, the one intended for her not yet being ready.
Montoni’s Party Rescues Emily from Abduction
As Barnardine swears at his men for their delay and Emily feebly calls for help, a cluster of lights pours from the great gates and Annette’s shrill voice rises above the others, followed by Montoni and Cavigni with a band of rough-looking fellows whom Emily now regards not with terror but with hope, all her former wish to escape the castle forgotten in the face of the dangers threatening her from without. A brief contest follows in which Montoni’s party quickly prevail; the horsemen, outnumbered and apparently lukewarm in their errand, gallop off into the darkness, Barnardine flees so far that he is lost to sight, and Emily is led back into the castle by her rescuers.
Emily Is Returned to the Castle
As Emily is conducted back across the courts, the memory of the murdered corpse in the portal-chamber returns to her mind in all its horror. When she hears the castle gate close behind her, shutting her once more within its walls, she shudders for herself and almost forgets the danger she has just escaped, feeling that nothing less precious than liberty and peace can exist beyond those walls. She is left in her apartment, while Montoni summons his servants to make further enquiries into the abduction.
Montoni Questions Emily About the Failed Escape
Montoni orders Emily to await him in the cedar parlour, where he soon joins her and sternly questions her about the night’s events. Though she now regards him with horror as the murderer of her aunt and can scarcely gather her thoughts, her replies and manner convince him that she played no willing part in the escape plot, and he dismisses her upon the arrival of the servants he has ordered to attend for a fuller investigation. Alone in her chamber afterwards, Emily is gradually overcome by the recollection of the dead form beneath the curtain, and though Annette grows more and more alarmed, Emily will not share the fatal secret with her for fear that her indiscretion should bring Montoni’s vengeance down upon them both.
Emily Suffers Severe Mental Distress
Burdened with the unshareable horror of what she has seen, Emily’s reason appears to totter beneath its weight; she fixes a wild, vacant look on Annette, answers at random or not at all, and falls into long fits of abstraction in which she sits fixed and silent, heaving now and then a heavy but tearless sigh. When Annette at last goes to inform Montoni, he follows her immediately and speaks to Emily in tones somewhat softened from his usual harshness, but Emily regards him with a curious, half-terrified stare and answers only “yes” to whatever he says, her mind seeming to retain no impression but that of fear. Even after he has gone she asks who has been disturbing her, repeats Montoni’s name several times as though she does not recognize it, and then groans and relapses once more into abstraction.
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