There was now a second alarm, and a further cause for anxiety.  Nanny, who had been spoken to sharply by the physician, had been compelled by threats to confess, and after her confession had been overwhelmed with reproaches, had now disappeared.  After a long search she was found; but she appeared to be out of her mind.  Her parents took her home; but the gentlest treatment had no effect upon her, and she had to be locked up for fear she would run away again.

They succeeded by degrees in recovering Edward from the extreme agony of despair; but only to make him more really wretched.  He now saw clearly, he could not doubt how, that the happiness of his life was gone from him for ever.  It was suggested to him that if Ottilie was placed in the chapel, she would still remain among the living, and it would be a calm, quiet, peaceful home for her.  There was much difficulty in obtaining his consent; he would only give it under condition that she should be taken there in an open coffin; that the vault in which she was laid, if covered at all, should be only covered with glass, and a lamp should be kept always burning there.  It was arranged that this should be done, and then he seemed resigned.

They clothed the delicate body in the festal dress, which she had herself prepared.  A garland of asters was wreathed about her head, which shone sadly there like melancholy stars.  To decorate the bier and the church and chapel, the gardens were robbed of their beauty; they lay desolate, as if a premature winter had blighted all their loveliness.  In the earliest morning she was borne in an open coffin out of the castle, and the heavenly features were once more reddened with the rising sun.  The mourners crowded about her as she was being taken along.  None would go before; none would follow; every one would be where she was, every one would enjoy her presence for the last time.  Men and women and little boys—­there was not one unmoved; least of all to be consoled were the girls, who felt most immediately what they had lost.

Nanny was not present; it had been thought better not to allow it, and they had kept secret from her the day and the hour of the funeral.  She was at her parents’ house, closely watched, in a room looking toward the garden.  But when she heard the bells tolling, she knew too well what they meant; and her attendant having left her out of curiosity to see the funeral, she escaped out of the window into a passage, and from thence, finding all the doors locked, into an upper open loft.  At this moment the funeral was passing through the village, which had been all freshly strewed with leaves.  Nanny saw her mistress plainly close below her, more plainly, more entirely, than any one in the procession underneath; she appeared to be lifted above the earth, borne as it were on clouds or waves, and the girl fancied she was making signs to her; her senses swam, she tottered, swayed herself for a moment on the edge, and fell