The kiss which he had ventured to give, and which she had all but
returned to him, brought Charlotte to herself again--she pressed his
hand--but she did not attempt to raise him up. She bent down over him,
and laid her hand upon his shoulder and said:

"We cannot now prevent this moment from forming an epoch in our lives;
but it depends on us to bear ourselves in a manner which shall be worthy
of us. You must go away, my dear friend; and you are going. The Count
has plans for you, to give you better prospects--I am glad, and I am
sorry. I did not mean to speak of it till it was certain but this moment
obliges me to tell you my secret * * * Since it does not depend on
ourselves to alter our feelings, I can only forgive you, I can only
forgive myself, if we have the courage to alter our situation." She
raised him up, took his arm to support herself, and they walked back to
the castle without speaking.

But now she was standing in her own room, where she had to feel and to
know that she was Edward's wife. Her strength and the various discipline
in which through life she had trained herself, came to her assistance in
the conflict. Accustomed as she had always been to look steadily into
herself and to control herself, she did not now find it difficult, with
an earnest effort, to come to the resolution which she desired. She
could almost smile when she remembered the strange visit of the night
before. Suddenly she was seized with a wonderful instinctive feeling, a
thrill of fearful delight which changed into holy hope and longing. She
knelt earnestly down, and repeated the oath which she had taken to
Edward before the altar.

Friendship, affection, renunciation, floated in glad, happy images