The excitement occasioned by this scene, added to my previous illness,
from the effects of which I had not sufficiently recovered, caused a
faintness; I sat down under the window, in hopes that it would pass
off. It did not, however; for I fell, and lay on the turf in a state
of insensibility, which must have lasted nearly half an hour. I
afterwards learned from Clara, that Emily had opened the window, it
being a French one, to walk out and recover herself. By the bright
moon-light, she perceived me lying on the ground. Her first idea was,
that I had committed suicide; and, with this impression, she shut
the window, and tottering to the back part of the room, fainted. Her
father ran to her assistance, and she fell into his arms. She was
taken up to her room, and consigned to the care of her woman, who put
her to bed; but she was unable to give any account of herself, or the
cause of her disorder, until the following day.
For my own part, I gradually came to my senses, and with difficulty
regained my chaise, the driver of which told me I had been gone about
an hour. I drove off to town, wholly unaware that I had been observed
by any one, much less by Emily. When she related to her father what
she had seen, he either disbelieved or affected to disbelieve it, and
treated it as the effects of a distempered mind, the phantoms of a
disordered imagination; and she at length began to coincide with him.
I started for the continent a few days afterwards.
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