.
But family arrangements and legal contracts exist, the fulfillment
of which the opposing party are bent on enforcing. The struggle will
be hard--perhaps unsuccessful; notwithstanding, I will strain every
nerve. Should I fail, you must console yourself, my dear Edward,
with the thought, that it will be no misfortune to your friend to
be deprived of an existence rendered miserable by the failure of his
dearest hopes, and separation from his dearest friend. Then may all
the happiness which Heaven has denied me be vouchsafed to you and her,
so that my spirit may look down contentedly from the realms of light,
and bless and protect you both."

Such was the usual tenor of the letters which Edward received during
that period, His heart was full of anxiety--he read danger and
distress in the mysterious communications of Ferdinand; and every
argument that affection and good sense could suggest did he make use
of, in his replies, to turn his friend from this path of peril which
threatened to end in a deep abyss. He tried persuasion, and urged him
to desist for the sake of their long-tried affection--but when did
passion ever listen to the expostulations of friendship?

Ferdinand only saw one aim in life--the possession of the beloved
one. All else faded from before his eyes, and even his correspondence
slackened, for his time was much taken up in secret excursions,
arrangements of all kinds, and communications with all manner of
persons; in fact every action of his present life tended to the
furtherance of his plan.

All of a sudden his letters ceased. Many posts passed without a sign
of life. Edward was a prey to the greatest anxiety; he thought his
friend had staked and lost. He imagined an elopement, a clandestine
marriage, a duel with a rival, and all these casualties were the more
painful to conjecture, since his entire ignorance of the real state
of things gave his fancy full range to conjure up all sorts of
misfortunes. At length, after many more posts had come in without a
line to pacify Edward's fears, without a word in reply to his earnest
entreaties for some news, he determined on taking a step which he had
meditated before, and only relinquished out of consideration for his
friend's wishes. He wrote to the officer commanding the regiment,
and made inquiries respecting the health and abode of Lieutenant Von
Hallberg, whose friends in the capital had remained for nearly two
months without news of him, he who had h