ated in the will, and however revolted the
judges were, particularly by the last clauses of the protest, in which
the son felt no compunction at accusing his dead father of a crime, yet
the views of the case there stated were after all the right ones; and
it was only due to V----'s restless exertions, and his explicit and
solemn assurance that the proofs which were necessary to establish
legitimately the identity of Freiherr Roderick von R---- should be
produced in a very short time, that the surrender of the estate to the
young Baron was deferred, and the contrivance of the administration of
it in trust agreed to, until after the case should be settled.

V---- was only too well aware how difficult it would be for him to keep
his promise. He had turned over all old Roderick's papers without
finding the slightest trace of a letter or any kind of a statement
bearing upon Wolfgang's relation to Mdlle. de St. Val. He was sitting
wrapt in thought in old Roderick's sleeping-cabinet, every hole and
comer of which he had searched, and was working at a long statement of
the case that he intended despatching to a certain notary in Geneva,
who had been recommended to him as a shrewd and energetic man, to
request him to procure and forward certain documents which would
establish the young Freiherr's cause on firm ground. It was midnight;
the full moon shone in through the windows of the adjoining hall, the
door of which stood open. Then V---- fancied he heard a noise as of
some one coming slowly and heavily up the stairs, and also at the same
time a jingling and rattling of keys. His attention was arrested; he
rose to his feet and went into the hall, where he plainly made out that
there was some one crossing the ante-room and approaching the door of
the hall where he was. Soon afterwards the door was opened and a man
came slowly in, dressed in night-clothes, his face ghastly pale and
distorted; in the one hand he bore a candle-stick with the candles
burning, and in the other a huge bunch of keys. V---- at once
recognised the house-steward, and was on the point of addressing him
and inquiring what he wanted so late at night, when he was arrested by
an icy shiver; there was something so unearthly and ghost-like in the
old man's manner and bearing as well as in his set, pallid face. He
perceived that he was in presence of a somnambulist. Crossing the hall
obliquely with measured strides, the old man went straight to the
walled-up post