new
bolts, which had been fastened on since the previous evening, for they
had not been there then. V---- perceived that the old man had wished to
make it impossible for him to get out of his room; for the blind
impulse which urged him to wander in his sleep he could not resist. The
old man became seriously ill; he did not speak; he took but little
nourishment; and lay staring before him with the reflection of death in
his set eyes, just as if he were clasped in the vice-like grip of some
hideous thought. V---- believed he would never rise from his bed again.

V---- had done all that could be done for his client; and he could now
only await the result in patience; and so he resolved to return to
K----. His departure was fixed for the following morning. As he was
packing his papers together late at night, he happened to lay his hand
upon a little sealed packet which Freiherr Hubert von R---- had given
him, bearing the inscription, "To be read after my will has been
opened," and which by some unaccountable means had hitherto escaped his
notice. He was on the point of breaking the seal when the door opened
and Daniel came in with still, ghostlike step. Placing upon the table a
black portfolio which he carried under his arm, he sank upon his knees
with a deep groan, and grasping V----'s hands with a convulsive clutch
he said, in a voice so hollow and hoarse that it seemed to come from
the bottom of a grave, "I should not like to die on the scaffold! There
is One above who judges!" Then, rising with some trouble and with many
painful gasps, he left the room as he had come.

V---- spent the whole of the night in reading what the black portfolio
and Hubert's packet contained. Both agreed in all circumstantial
particulars, and suggested naturally what further steps were to be
taken. On arriving at K----, V---- immediately repaired to Freiherr
Hubert von R----, who received him with ill-mannered pride. But the
remarkable result of the interview, which began at noon and lasted on
without interruption until late at night, was that the next day the
Freiherr made a declaration before the court to the effect that he
acknowledged the claimant to be, agreeably to his father's will, the
son of Wolfgang von R----, eldest son of Freiherr Roderick von R----,
and begotten in lawful wedlock with Mdlle. Julia de St. Val, and
furthermore acknowledged him as rightful and legitimate heir to the
entail. On leaving the court he found his carriage