the town in search of other
quarters. And considering all these advantages, when I reckon carefully,
I calculate that, by the end of the year, I have not sacrificed more
than it would have cost me to be at home."

In this description Ottilie saw nothing but Edward before her; how he
too was now amidst discomfort and hardship, marching along untrodden
roads, lying out in the fields in danger and want, and in all this
insecurity and hazard growing accustomed to be homeless and friendless,
learning to fling away everything that he might have nothing to lose.
Fortunately, the party separated for a short time. Ottilie escaped to
her room, where she could give way to her tears. No weight of sorrow had
ever pressed so heavily upon her as this clear perception (which she
tried, as people usually do, to make still clearer to herself), that men
love to dally with and exaggerate the evils which circumstances have
once begun to inflict upon them.

The state in which Edward was came before her in a light so piteous, so
miserable, that she made up her mind, let it cost her what it would,
that she would do everything in her power to unite him again with
Charlotte, and she herself would go and hide her sorrow and her love in
some silent scene, and beguile the time with such employment as she
could find.

Meanwhile the Earl's companion, a quiet, sensible man and a keen
observer, had remarked the new trend in the conversation, and spoke to
his friend about it. The latter knew nothing of the circumstances of the
family; but the other being one of those persons whose principal
interest in traveling lay in gathering up the strange occurrences which
arose out of the natural or artificial relations of society, which were
produced by the conflict of the restraint of law with the violence of
the will, of the understanding with the reason, of passion with
prejudice--had some time before made himself acquainted with the outline
of the story, and since he had been in the family had learnt exactly all
that had taken place, and the present position in which things were
standing.

The Earl, of course, was very sorry, but it was not a thing to make him
uneasy. A man must hold his tongue altogether in society if he is never
to find himself in such a position; for not only remarks with meaning in
them, but the most trivial expressions, may happen to clash in an
inharmonious key with the interest of somebody present.

"We will set things right thi