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CHAPTER XVII
It was with the utmost surprise that Charlotte saw the carriage drive up with
Ottilie, and Edward at the same moment ride into the court-yard of the castle.
She ran down to the hall. Ottilie alighted, and approached her and Edward.
Violently and eagerly she caught the hands of the wife and husband, pressed
them together, and hurried off to her own room. Edward threw himself on
Charlotte’s neck and burst into tears. He could not give her any explanation; he
besought her to have patience with him, and to go at once to see Ottilie.
Charlotte followed her to her room, and she could not enter it without a shudder.
It had been all cleared out. There was nothing to be seen but the empty walls,
which stood there looking cheerless, vacant, and miserable. Everything had been
carried away except the little box, which from an uncertainty what was to be
done with it, had been left in the middle of the room. Ottilie was lying stretched
upon the ground, her arm and head leaning across the cover. Charlotte bent
anxiously over her, and asked what had happened; but she received no answer.
Her maid had come with restoratives. Charlotte left her with Ottilie, and
herself hastened back to Edward. She found him in the saloon, but he could tell
her nothing.
He threw himself down before her; he bathed her hands with tears; he flew to
his own room, and she was going to follow him thither, when she met his valet.
From this man she gathered as much as he was able to tell. The rest she put
together in her own thoughts as well as she could, and then at once set herself
resolutely to do what the exigencies of the moment required. Ottilie’s room was
put to rights again as quickly as possible; Edward found his, to the last paper,
exactly as he had left it.
The three appeared again to fall into some sort of relation with one another.
But Ottilie persevered in her silence, and Edward could do nothing except
entreat his wife to exert a patience which seemed wanting to himself. Charlotte
sent messengers to Mittler and to the Major. The first was absent from home and
could not be found. The latter came. To him Edward poured out all his heart,
confessing every most trifling circumstance to him, and thus Charlotte learnt
fully what had passed; what it had been which had produced such violent
excitement, and how so strange an alteration of their mutual position had been
brought about.
She spoke with the utmost tenderness to her husband. She had nothing to ask
of him, except that for the present he would leave the poor girl to herself.
Edward was not insensible to the worth, the affection, the strong sense of his
wife; but his passion absorbed him exclusively. Charlotte tried to cheer him with
hopes. She promised that she herself would make no difficulties about the
separation; but it had small effect with him. He was so much shaken that hope
and faith alternately forsook him. A species of insanity appeared to have taken
possession of him. He urged Charlotte to promise to give her hand to the Major.
To satisfy him and to humor him, she did what he required. She engaged to
become herself the wife of the Major, in the event of Ottilie consenting to the
marriage with Edward; with this express condition, however, that for the present
the two gentlemen should go abroad together. The Major had a foreign
appointment from the Court, and it was settled that Edward should accompany
him. They arranged it all together, and in doing so found a sort of comfort for
themselves in the sense that at least something was being done.
In the meantime they had to remark that Ottilie took scarcely anything to eat
or drink. She still persisted in refusing to speak. They at first used to talk to her,
but it appeared to distress her, and they left it off. We are not, universally at
least, so weak as to persist in torturing people for their good. Charlotte thought
over what could possibly be done. At last she fancied it might be well to ask the
Assistant of the school to come to them. He had much influence with Ottilie, and
had been writing with much anxiety to inquire the cause of her not having
arrived at the time he had been expecting her; but as yet she had not sent him
any answer.
In order not to take Ottilie by surprise, they spoke of their intention of sending
this invitation in her presence. It did not seem to please her; she thought for
some little time; at last she appeared to have formed some resolution. She retired
to her own room, and before the evening sent the following letter to the
assembled party:
Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: | 
