, with post-horses,
standing before the door; he stepped in and was driven off at a rapid
rate, leaving his mother and his sister behind him. They would perhaps
never see him again, he wrote, along with other perplexing statements.
Roderick's astonishment at this unexpected turn which the case had
taken was very great; he pressed V---- to explain to him how this
wonder had been brought about, what mysterious power was at work in the
matter. V----, however, evaded his questions by giving him hopes of
telling him all at some future time, and when he should have come into
possession of the estate. For the surrender of the entail to him could
not be effected immediately, since the court, not content with Hubert's
declaration, required that Roderick should also first prove his own
identity to their satisfaction. V---- proposed to the Baron that he
should go and live at R--sitten, adding that Hubert's mother and
sister, momentarily embarrassed by his sudden departure, would prefer
to go and live quietly on the ancestral property rather than stay in
the dear and noisy town. The glad delight with which Roderick welcomed
the prospect of dwelling, at least for a time, under the same roof with
the Baroness and her daughter, betrayed the deep impression which the
lovely and graceful Seraphina had made upon him. In fact, the Freiherr
made such good use of his time in R--sitten that, at the end of a few
weeks, he had won Seraphina's love as well as her mother's cordial
approval of her marriage with him. All this was for V---- rather too
quick work, since Roderick's claims to be lord of the entail still
continued to be rather doubtful. The life of idyllic happiness at the
castle was interrupted by letters from Courland. Hubert had not shown
himself at all at the estates, but had travelled direct to St
Petersburg, where he had taken military service and was now in the
field against the Persians, with whom Russia happened to be just then
waging war. This obliged the Baroness and her daughter to set off
immediately for their Courland estates, where everything was in
confusion and disorder. Roderick, who regarded himself in the light of
an accepted son-in-law, insisted upon accompanying his beloved; and
hence, since V---- likewise returned to K----, the castle was left in
its previous loneliness. The house-steward's malignant complaint grew
worse and worse, so that he gave up all hopes of ever getting about
again; and his office was confer