In the course of that same evening Oswald made all preparations for his improvised journey. Ettersberg was situated within easy reach of the city. By taking the morning train he could be there by noon. Some pretext could easily be found by which his visit to the castle could be limited to a day or two at most, and the wedding, which at all costs he was determined to avoid, was not to take place until Christmas. At Ettersberg nothing, of course, was known of this intended visit. The dwellers at the castle had enough, and more than enough, to do with the preparations for the coming wedding and for the accommodation of the young couple in their future home. Many alterations were being made on the _bel étage_, which was to be given up altogether to the Count and his wife, and the necessary arrangements were as yet by no means completed. Besides this, Schönfeld had to be set in readiness for the Dowager Countess, who intended to take up her residence there directly after the wedding. The Countess's resolve to leave Ettersberg after her son's marriage had taken everyone by surprise. She had, it is true, occasionally alluded to such a plan, but never in real earnest, and had always submitted with a very good grace to Edmund's vehement protests against the idea of a separation. Now both seemed to have altered their views. The Countess suddenly announced that in future she should make her home at Schönfeld, a smaller dwelling which her husband had expressly appointed her for a dower-house, and Edmund raised no objection whatsoever. At Brunneck this sudden determination excited much amazement and comment, but at the same time it gave entire satisfaction. Rüstow had always feared for his daughter a life under the same roof with her mother-in-law, and this unexpected turn of events was too welcome and acceptable in itself for him to muse or ponder much over the cause of it.