“The surgeon will do whatever is right, no doubt,” replied Edward.  “He is provided with everything which he can want, and we should only be in the way if we crowded about him with our anxieties.”

Charlotte persisted in her opinion, and made a sign to Ottilie, who at once prepared to retire with her.  Edward seized her hand, and cried, “We will not end this day in a lazaretto.  She is too good for a sister of mercy.  Without us, I should think, the half-dead may wake, and the living dry themselves.”

Charlotte did not answer, but went.  Some followed her—­others followed these:  in the end, no one wished to be the last, and all followed.  Edward and Ottilie found themselves alone under the plane-trees.  He insisted that stay he would, earnestly, passionately, as she entreated him to go back with her to the castle.  “No, Ottilie!” he cried; “the extraordinary is not brought to pass in the smooth common way—­the wonderful accident of this evening brings us more speedily together.  You are mine—­I have often said it to you, and sworn it to you.  We will not say it and swear it any more—­we will make it BE.”

The boat came over from the other side.  The valet was in it—­he asked, with some embarrassment, what his master wished to have done with the fireworks?

“Let them off!” Edward cried to him:  “let them off!  It was only for you that they were provided, Ottilie, and you shall be the only one to see them!  Let me sit beside you, and enjoy them with you.”  Tenderly, timidly, he sat down at her side, without touching her.

Rockets went hissing up—­cannon thundered—­Roman candles shot out their blazing balls—­squibs flashed and darted—­wheels spun round, first singly, then in pairs, then all at once, faster and faster, one after the other, and more and more together.  Edward, whose bosom was on fire, watched the blazing spectacle with eyes gleaming with delight; but Ottilie, with her delicate and nervous feelings, in all this noise and fitful blazing and flashing, found more to distress her than to please.  She leant shrinking against Edward, and he, as she drew to him and clung to him, felt the delightful sense that she belonged entirely to him.

The night had scarcely reassumed its rights, when the moon rose and lighted their path as they walked back.  A figure, with his hat in his hand, stepped across their way, and begged an alms of them—­in the general holiday he said that he had been forgotten.  The moon shone upon his face, and Edward recognized the features of the importunate beggar; but, happy as he then was, it was impossible for him to be angry with any one.  He could not recollect that, especially for that particular day, begging had been forbidden under the heaviest penalties—­he thrust his hand into his pocket, took the first coin which he found, and gave the fellow a piece of gold.  His own happiness was so unbounded that he would have liked to share it with every one.