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'And how little did I expect, that it would be necessary for me to say

so!' rejoined Emily, while her voice softened into tenderness, and her

tears flowed again--'That you--you, Valancourt, would ever fall from my

esteem!' He was silent a er deserving this estee lost

it, and then, with irief, lamented the criminality of his

late conduct and the misery to which it had reduced him, till, overcome

by a recollection of the past and a conviction of the future, he burst

into tears, and uttered only deep and broken sighs

The remorse he had expressed, and the distress he suffered could not

be witnessed by Emily with indifference, and, had she not called to

her recollection all the circumstances, of which Count De Villefort

had infor in

repentance, forht perhaps

have trusted to the assurances of her heart, and have forgotten his

misconduct in the tenderness, which that repentance excited

Valancourt, returning to the chair beside her, at length, said, in a