Edward had sent an answer by Charlotte’s messenger, who had come to him in his solitude.  It was written with kindness and interest, but it was rather composed and serious than warm and affectionate.  He had vanished almost immediately after, and Charlotte could learn no news about him; till at last she accidentally found his name in the newspaper, where he was mentioned with honor among those who had most distinguished themselves in a late important engagement.  She now understood the method which he had taken; she perceived that he had escaped from great danger; only she was convinced at the same time that he would seek out greater; and it was all too clear to her that in every sense he would hardly be withheld from any extremity.

She had to bear about this perpetual anxiety in her thoughts, and turn which way she would, there was no light in which she could look at it that would give her comfort.

Ottilie, never dreaming of anything of this, had taken to the work in the chapel with the greatest interest, and she had easily obtained Charlotte’s permission to go on with it regularly.  So now all went swiftly forward, and the azure heaven was soon peopled with worthy inhabitants.  By continual practice both Ottilie and the Architect had gained more freedom with the last figures; they became perceptibly better.  The faces, too, which had been all left to the Architect to paint, showed by degrees a very singular peculiarly.  They began all of them to resemble Ottilie.  The neighborhood of the beautiful girl had made so strong an impression on the soul of the young man, who had no variety of faces preconceived in his mind, that by degrees, on the way from the eye to the hand, nothing was lost, and both worked in exact harmony together.  Enough; one of the last faces succeeded perfectly; so that it seemed as if Ottilie herself was looking down out of the spaces of the sky.

They had finished with the arching of the ceiling.  The walls they proposed to leave plain, and only to cover them over with a bright brown color.  The delicate pillars and the quaintly molded ornaments were to be distinguished from them by a dark shade.  But as in such things one thing ever leads on to another, they determined at least on having festoons of flowers and fruit, which should, as it were, unite heaven and earth.  Here Ottilie was in her element.  The gardens provided the most perfect patterns; and although the wreaths were as rich as they could make them, it was all finished sooner than they had supposed possible.

It was still looking rough and disorderly.  The scaffolding poles had been run together, the planks thrown one on the top of the other; the uneven pavement was yet more disfigured by the parti-colored stains of the paint which had been spilt over it.

The Architect begged that the ladies would give him a week to himself, and during that time would not enter the chapel; at the end of it, one fine evening, he came to them, and begged them both to go and see it.  He did not wish to accompany them, he said, and at once took his leave.