Charlotte now asked him if he would carry the news to Edward:  if he would take a letter to him from her, and then see what should be done.  But he declined undertaking this.  “All is done,” he cried; “do you write your letter—­any messenger will do as well as I—­I will come back to wish you joy.  I will come to the christening!”

For this refusal she was vexed with him—­as she frequently was.  His eager, impetuous character brought about much good; but his over-haste was the occasion of many a failure.  No one was more dependent than he on the impressions which he formed on the moment.  Charlotte’s messenger came to Edward, who received him half in terror.  The letter was to decide his fate, and it might as well contain No as Yes.  He did not venture, for a long time, to open it.  At last he tore off the cover, and stood petrified at the following passage, with which it concluded: 

“Remember the night-adventure when you visited your wife as a lover—­how you drew her to you, and clasped her as a well-beloved bride in your arms.  In this strange accident let us revere the providence of heaven, which has woven a new link to bind us, at the moment when the happiness of our lives was threatening to fall asunder and to vanish.”

What passed from that moment in Edward’s soul it would be difficult to describe!  Under the weight of such a stroke, old habits and fancies come out again to assist to kill the time and fill up the chasms of life.  Hunting and fighting are an ever-ready resource of this kind for a nobleman; Edward longed for some outward peril, as a counterbalance to the storm within him.  He craved for death, because the burden of life threatened to become too heavy for him to bear.  It comforted him to think that he would soon cease to be, and so would make those whom he loved happy by his departure.

No one made any difficulty in his doing what he purposed—­because he kept his intention a secret.  He made his will with all due formalities.  It gave him a very sweet feeling to secure Ottilie’s fortune—­provision was made for Charlotte, for the unborn child, for the Captain, and for the servants.  The war, which had again broken out, favored his wishes:  he had disliked exceedingly the half-soldiering which had fallen to him in his youth, and that was the reason why he had left the service.  Now it gave him a fine exhilarating feeling to be able to rejoin it under a commander of whom it could be said that, under his conduct, death was likely and victory was sure.

Ottilie, when Charlotte’s secret was made known to her, bewildered by it, like Edward, and more than he, retired into herself—­she had nothing further to say:  hope she could not, and wish she dared not.  A glimpse into what was passing in her we can gather from her Diary, some passages of which we think to communicate.

There often happens to us in common life what, in an epic poem, we are accustomed to praise as a stroke of art in the poet; namely, that when the chief figures go off the scene, conceal themselves or retire into inactivity, some other or others, whom hitherto we have scarcely observed, come forward and fill their places.  And these putting out all their force, at once fix our attention and sympathy on themselves, and earn our praise and admiration.