bles to see Mr.
Raven.

XV

The poor fellow was full of forebodings of the fate in store for him on
the ominous first of March. He eagerly entreated me to order one of the
men servants to sit up with him on the birthday morning. In granting his
request, I asked him to tell me on which day of the week his birthday
fell. He reckoned the days on his fingers; and proved his innocence of all
suspicion that it was Leap Year, by fixing on the twenty-ninth of
February, in the full persuasion that it was the first of March. Pledged
to try the surgeon's experiment, I left his error uncorrected, of course.
In so doing, I took my first step blindfold toward the last act in the
drama of the Hostler's Dream.

The next day brought with it a little domestic difficulty, which
indirectly and strangely associated itself with the coming end.

My wife received a letter, inviting us to assist in celebrating the
"Silver Wedding" of two worthy German neighbors of ours--Mr. and Mrs.
Beldheimer. Mr. Beldheimer was a large wine grower on the banks of the
Moselle. His house was situated on the frontier line of France and
Germany; and the distance from our house was sufficiently considerable to
make it necessary for us to sleep under our host's roof. Under these
circumstances, if we accepted the invitation, a comparison of dates showed
that we should be away from home on the morning of the first of March.
Mrs. Fairbank--holding to her absurd resolution to see with her own eyes
what might, or might not, happen to Francis Raven on his birthday--flatly
declined to leave Maison Rouge. "It's easy to send an excuse," she said,
in her off-hand manner.

I failed, for my part, to see any easy way out of the difficulty. The
celebration of a "Silver Wedding" in Germany is the celebration of
twenty-five years of happy married life; and the host's claim upon the
consideration of his friends on such an occasion is something in the
nature of a royal "command." After considerable discussion, finding my
wife's obstinacy invincible, and feeling that the absence of both of us
from the festival would certainly offend our friends, I left Mrs. Fairbank
to make her excuses for herself, and directed her to accept the invitation
so far as I was concerned. In so doing, I took my second step, blindfold,
toward the last act in the drama of the Hostler's Dream.

A week elapsed; the last days of February were at hand. Another domestic
difficulty happened; and, again, t