the left led into Charlotte's sleeping-room. He heard
her voice, and listened. She was speaking to her maid. "Is Ottilie in
bed?" she asked. "No," was the answer; "she is sitting writing in the
room below." "You may light the night-lamp," said Charlotte; "I shall
not want you any more. It is late. I can put out the candle, and do
whatever I may want else myself."

It was a delight to Edward to hear that Ottilie was writing still. She
is working for me, he thought triumphantly. Through the darkness, he
fancied he could see her sitting all alone at her desk. He thought he
would go to her, and see her; and how she would turn to receive him. He
felt a longing, which he could not resist, to be near her once more.
But, from where he was, there was no way to the apartments which she
occupied. He now found himself immediately at his wife's door. A
singular change of feeling came over him. He tried the handle, but the
bolts were shot. He knocked gently. Charlotte did not hear him. She was
walking rapidly up and down in the large dressing-room adjoining. She
was repeating over and over what, since the Count's unexpected proposal,
she had often enough had to say to herself. The Captain seemed to stand
before her. At home, and everywhere, he had become her all in all. And
now he was to go; and it was all to be desolate again. She repeated
whatever wise things one can say to oneself; she even anticipated, as
people so often do, the wretched comfort that time would come at last to
her relief; and then she cursed the time which would have to pass before
it could lighten her sufferings--she cursed the dead, cold time when
they would be lightened. At last she burst into tears; they were the
more welcome, since tears with her were rare. She flung herself on the
sofa, and gave herself up unreservedly to her sufferings. Edward,
meanwhile, could not take himself from the door. He knocked again; and a
third time rather louder; so that Charlotte, in the stillness of the
night, distinctly heard it, and started up in fright. Her first thought
was--it can only be, it must be, the Captain; her second, that it was
impossible. She thought she must have been deceived. But surely she had
heard it; and she wished, and she feared to have heard it. She went into
her sleeping-room, and walked lightly up to the bolted tapestry-door.
She blamed herself for her fears. "Possibly it may be the Baroness
wanting something," she said to herself; and she called ou