somebody has broken my favorite cup, and for a long time nothing tastes well out of any other.  All this I am happily raised above.  If the house catches fire about my ears, my people quietly pack my things up, and we pass away out of the town in search of other quarters.  And considering all these advantages, when I reckon carefully, I calculate that, by the end of the year, I have not sacrificed more than it would have cost me to be at home.”

In this description Ottilie saw nothing but Edward before her; how he too was now amidst discomfort and hardship, marching along untrodden roads, lying out in the fields in danger and want, and in all this insecurity and hazard growing accustomed to be homeless and friendless, learning to fling away everything that he might have nothing to lose.  Fortunately, the party separated for a short time.  Ottilie escaped to her room, where she could give way to her tears.  No weight of sorrow had ever pressed so heavily upon her as this clear perception (which she tried, as people usually do, to make still clearer to herself), that men love to dally with and exaggerate the evils which circumstances have once begun to inflict upon them.

The state in which Edward was came before her in a light so piteous, so miserable, that she made up her mind, let it cost her what it would, that she would do everything in her power to unite him again with Charlotte, and she herself would go and hide her sorrow and her love in some silent scene, and beguile the time with such employment as she could find.

Meanwhile the Earl’s companion, a quiet, sensible man and a keen observer, had remarked the new trend in the conversation, and spoke to his friend about it.  The latter knew nothing of the circumstances of the family; but the other being one of those persons whose principal interest in traveling lay in gathering up the strange occurrences which arose out of the natural or artificial relations of society, which were produced by the conflict of the restraint of law with the violence of the will, of the understanding with the reason, of passion with prejudice—­had some time before made himself acquainted with the outline of the story, and since he had been in the family had learnt exactly all that had taken place, and the present position in which things were standing.

The Earl, of course, was very sorry, but it was not a thing to make him uneasy.  A man must hold his tongue altogether in society if he is never to find himself in such a position; for not only remarks with meaning in them, but the most trivial expressions, may happen to clash in an inharmonious key with the interest of somebody present.

“We will set things right this evening,” said he, “and escape from any general conversation; you shall let them hear one of the many charming anecdotes with which your portfolio and your memory have enriched themselves while we have been abroad.”

However, with the best intentions, the strangers did not, on this next occasion, succeed any better in gratifying their friends with unalloyed entertainment.  The Earl’s friend told a number of singular stories—­some serious, some amusing, some touching, some terrible—­with which he had roused their attention and strained their interest to the highest tension, and he thought to conclude with a strange but softer incident, little dreaming how nearly it would touch his listeners.