, who was long since dead, but they none of them had any other
signature than W.

V---- looked through all these papers with a cloud upon his face; and
as he put them together again, he said, somewhat troubled, "Ah well!
God will help us!"

The very next morning Freiherr Hubert von R---- presented, through an
advocate whose services he had succeeded in enlisting in his cause, a
statement of protest to the government authorities in K----, actually
calling upon them to effectuate the immediate surrender to him of the
entail of R--sitten. It was incontestable, maintained the advocate,
that the deceased Freiherr Hubert Von R---- had not had the power to
dispose of entailed property either by testament or in any other way.
The testament in question, therefore, was nothing more than an
evidential statement, written down and deposited with the court, to the
effect that Freiherr Wolfgang von R---- had bequeathed the estate-tail
to a son who was at that time still living; and accordingly it had as
evidence no greater weight than that of any other witness, and so could
not by any possibility legitimately establish the claims of the person
who had announced himself to be Freiherr Roderick von R----. Hence it
was rather the duty of this new claimant to prove by action at law his
alleged rights of inheritance, which were hereby expressly disputed and
denied, and so also to take proper steps to maintain his claim to the
estate-tail, which now, according to the laws of succession, fell to
Baron Hubert von R----. By the father's death the property came at once
immediately into the hands of the son. There was no need for any
formal declaration to be made of his entering into possession of the
inheritance, since the succession could not be alienated; at any rate,
the present owner of the estate was not going to be disturbed in his
possession by claims which were perfectly groundless. Whatever reasons
the deceased might have had for bringing forward another heir of entail
were quite irrelevant. And it might be remarked that he had himself had
an intrigue in Switzerland, as could be proved if necessary from the
papers he had left behind him; and it was quite possible that the
person whom he alleged to be his brother's son was his own son, the
fruit of an unlawful love, for whom in a momentary fit of remorse he
had wished to secure the entail.

However great was the balance of probability in favour of the truth of
the circumstances as st