The Major rose to go.  She stretched out her hand to him across Ottilie.  He pressed it to his lips, and whispered gently:  “And for myself, may I hope anything?”

“Do not ask me now!” replied Charlotte.  “I will tell you another time.  We have not deserved to be miserable; but neither can we say that we have deserved to be happy together.”

The Major left her, and went, feeling for Charlotte to the bottom of his heart, but not being able to be sorry for the fate of the poor child.  Such an offering seemed necessary to him for their general happiness.  He pictured Ottilie to himself with a child of her own in her arms, as the most perfect compensation for the one of which she had deprived Edward.  He pictured himself with his own son on his knee, who should have better right to resemble him than the one which was departed.

With such flattering hopes and fancies passing through his mind, he returned to the hotel, and on his way back he met Edward, who had been waiting for him the whole night through in the open air, since neither rocket nor report of cannon would bring him news of the successful issue of his undertaking.  He had already heard of the misfortune; and he too, instead of being sorry for the poor creature, regarded what had befallen it, without being exactly ready to confess it to himself, as a convenient accident, through which the only impediment in the way of his happiness was at once removed.

The Major at once informed him of his wife’s resolution, and he therefore easily allowed himself to be prevailed upon to return again with him to the village, and from thence to go for a while to the little town, where they would consider what was next to be done, and make their arrangements.

After the Major had left her, Charlotte sat on, buried in her own reflections; but it was only for a few minutes.  Ottilie suddenly raised herself from her lap, and looked full with her large eyes in her friend’s face.  Then she got up from off the ground, and stood upright before her.

“This is the second time,” began the noble girl, with an irresistible solemnity of manner, “this is the second time that the same thing has happened to me.  You once said to me that similar things often befall people more than once in their lives in a similar way, and if they do, it is always at important moments.  I now find that what you said is true, and I have to make a confession to you.  Shortly after my mother’s death, when I was a very little child, I was sitting one day on a footstool close to you.  You were on a sofa, as you are at this moment, and my head rested on your knees.  I was not asleep, I was not awake:  I was in a trance.  I knew everything which was passing about me.  I heard every word which was said with the greatest distinctness, and yet I could not stir, I could not speak; and if I had wished it, I could not have given a hint that I was conscious.  On that occasion you were speaking about me to one of your