“Hark!” he called out, as he sprang up and listened.  He thought that he had heard a shot, and that it was the sign which the Major was to give.  It was the gun of a forester on the adjoining hill.  Nothing followed.  Edward grew impatient.

Ottilie now first observed that the sun was down behind the mountains; its last rays were shining on the windows of the house above.  “Leave me, Edward,” she cried; “go.  Long as we have been parted, much as we have borne, yet remember what we both owe to Charlotte.  She must decide our fate; do not let us anticipate her judgment.  I am yours if she will permit it to be so.  If she will not, I must renounce you.  As you think it is now so near an issue, let us wait.  Go back to the village, where the Major supposes you to be.  Is it likely that a rude cannon-shot will inform you of the results of such an interview?  Perhaps at this moment he is seeking for you.  He will not have found Charlotte at home; of that I am certain.  He may have gone to meet her; for they knew at the castle where she was.  How many things may have happened!  Leave me! she must be at home by this time; she is expecting me there with the baby.”

Ottilie spoke hurriedly; she called together all the possibilities.  It was too delightful to be with Edward; but she felt that he must now leave her.  “I beseech, I implore you, my beloved,” she cried out; “go back and wait for the Major.”

“I obey your commands,” cried Edward.  He gazed at her for a moment with rapturous love, and then caught her close in his arms.  She wound her own about him, and pressed him tenderly to her breast.  Hope streamed away, like a star shooting in the sky, above their heads.  They thought then, they believed, that they did indeed belong to each other.  For the first time they exchanged free, genuine kisses, and separated with pain and effort.

The sun had gone down.  It was twilight, and a damp mist was rising about the lake.  Ottilie stood confused and agitated.  She looked across to the house on the hill, and she thought she saw Charlotte’s white dress on the balcony.

It was a long way round by the end of the lake; and she knew how impatiently Charlotte would be waiting for the child.  She saw the plane-trees just opposite her, and only a narrow interval of water divided her from the path which led straight up to the house.  Her nervousness about venturing on the water with the child vanished in her present embarrassment.  She hastened to the boat; she did not feel that her heart was beating; that her feet were tottering; that her senses were threatening to fail her.

She sprang in, seized the oar, and pushed off.  She had to use force; she pushed again.  The boat shot off, and glided, swaying and rocking into the open water.  With the child in her left arm, the book in her left hand, and the oar in her right, she lost her footing, and fell over the seat; the oar slipped from her on one side, and as she tried to recover herself, the child and the book slipped on the other, all into the water.  She caught the floating dress, but lying entangled as she was herself, she was unable to rise.  Her right hand was free, but she could not reach round to help herself up with it; at last she succeeded.  She drew the child out of the water; but its eyes were closed, and it had ceased to breathe.