“Alas! alas!” cried Mittler, “what must I not endure with my friends?  Here comes superstition, which of all things I hate the worse—­the most mischievous and accursed of all the plagues of mankind.  We trifle with prophecies, with forebodings, and dreams, and give a seriousness to our every-day life with them; but when the seriousness of life itself begins to show, when everything around us is heaving and rolling, then come in these spectres to make the storm more terrible.”

“In this uncertainty of life,” cried Edward, “poised as it is between hope and fear, leave the poor heart its guiding-star.  It may gaze toward it, if it cannot steer toward it.”

“Yes, I might leave it; and it would be very well,” replied Mittler, “if there were but one consequence to expect; but I have always found that nobody will attend to symptoms of warning.  Man cares for nothing except what flatters him and promises him fair; and his faith is alive exclusively for the sunny side.”

Mittler, finding himself carried off into the shadowy regions, in which the longer he remained the more uncomfortable he always felt, was the more ready to assent to Edward’s eager wish that he should go to Charlotte.  Indeed, if he stayed, what was there further which at that moment he could urge on Edward?  To gain time, to inquire in what state things were with the ladies, was the best thing which even he himself could suggest as at present possible.

He hastened to Charlotte, whom he found as usual, calm and in good spirits.  She told him readily of everything which had occurred; for from what Edward had said he had only been able to gather the effects.  On his own side, he felt his way with the utmost caution.  He could not prevail upon himself even cursorily to mention the word separation.  It was a surprise, indeed, to him, but from his point of view an unspeakably delightful one, when Charlotte, at the end of a number of unpleasant things, finished with saying: 

“I must believe, I must hope, that things will all work round again, and that Edward will return to me.  How can it be otherwise as soon as I become a mother?”

“Do I understand you right?” returned Mittler.

“Perfectly,” Charlotte answered.

“A thousand times blessed be this news!” he cried, clasping his hands together.  “I know the strength of this argument on the mind of a man.  Many a marriage have I seen first cemented by it, and restored again when broken.  Such a good hope as this is worth more than a thousand words.  Now indeed it is the best hope which we can have.  For myself, though,” he continued, “I have all reason to be vexed about it.  In this case I can see clearly no self-love of mine will be flattered.  I shall earn no thanks from you by my services; I am in the same case as a certain medical friend of mine, who succeeds in all cures which he undertakes with the poor for the love of God; but can seldom do anything for the rich who will pay him.  Here, thank God, the thing cures itself, after all my talking and trying had proved fruitless.”