All this, which the dear girl poured out so warmly, Charlotte privately reflected over; on many different occasions, although only in the gentlest manner, she had hinted at the possibility of Ottilie’s being brought again in contact with Edward; but the slightest mention of it, the faintest hope, the least suspicion, seemed to wound Ottilie to the quick.  One day when she could not evade it, she expressed herself to Charlotte clearly and peremptorily on the subject.

“If your resolution to renounce Edward,” returned Charlotte, “is so firm and unalterable, then you had better avoid the danger of seeing him again.  At a distance from the object of our love, the warmer our affection, the stronger is the control which we fancy that we can exercise on ourselves; because the whole force of the passion, diverted from its outward objects, turns inward on ourselves.  But how soon, how swiftly is our mistake made clear to us, when the thing which we thought that we could renounce, stands again before our eyes as indispensable to us!  You must now do what you consider best suited to your circumstances.  Look well into yourself; change, if you prefer it, the resolution which you have just expressed.  But do it of yourself, with a free consenting heart.  Do not allow yourself to be drawn in by an accident; do not let yourself be surprised into your former position.  It will place you at issue with yourself and will be intolerable to you.  As I said, before you take this step, before you remove from me, and enter upon a new life, which will lead you no one knows in what direction, consider once more whether really, indeed, you can renounce Edward for the whole time to come.  If you have faithfully made up your mind that you will do this, then will you enter into an engagement with me, that you will never admit him into your presence; and if he seeks you out and forces himself upon you, that you will not exchange words with him?”

Ottilie did not hesitate a moment; she gave Charlotte the promise, which she had already made to herself.

Now, however, Charlotte began to be haunted with Edward’s threat, that he would only consent to renounce Ottilie, as long as she was not parted from Charlotte.  Since that time, indeed, circumstances were so altered, so many things had happened, that an engagement which was wrung from him in a moment of excitement might well be supposed to have been cancelled.  She was unwilling, however, in the remotest sense to venture anything or to undertake anything which might displease him, and Mittler was therefore to find Edward, and inquire what, as things now were, he wished to be done.

Since the death of the child, Mittler had often been at the castle to see Charlotte, although only for a few moments at a time.  The unhappy accident which had made her reconciliation with her husband in the highest degree improbable, had produced a most painful effect upon him.  But ever, as his nature was, hoping and striving, he rejoiced secretly at the resolution of Ottilie.  He trusted to the softening influence of passing time; he hoped that it might still be possible to keep the husband and the wife from separating; and he tried to regard these convulsions of passion only as trials of wedded love and fidelity.