his event also proved to be strangely
associated with the coming end.

My head groom at the stables was one Joseph Rigobert. He was an
ill-conditioned fellow, inordinately vain of his personal appearance, and
by no means scrupulous in his conduct with women. His one virtue consisted
of his fondness for horses, and in the care he took of the animals under
his charge. In a word, he was too good a groom to be easily replaced, or
he would have quitted my service long since. On the occasion of which I am
now writing, he was reported to me by my steward as growing idle and
disorderly in his habits. The principal offense alleged against him was,
that he had been seen that day in the city of Metz, in the company of a
woman (supposed to be an Englishwoman), whom he was entertaining at a
tavern, when he ought to have been on his way back to Maison Rouge. The
man's defense was that "the lady" (as he called her) was an English
stranger, unacquainted with the ways of the place, and that he had only
shown her where she could obtain some refreshments at her own request. I
administered the necessary reprimand, without troubling myself to inquire
further into the matter. In failing to do this, I took my third step,
blindfold, toward the last act in the drama of the Hostler's Dream.

On the evening of the twenty-eighth, I informed the servants at the
stables that one of them must watch through the night by the Englishman's
bedside. Joseph Rigobert immediately volunteered for the duty--as a means,
no doubt, of winning his way back to my favor. I accepted his proposal.

That day the surgeon dined with us. Toward midnight he and I left the
smoking room, and repaired to Francis Raven's bedside. Rigobert was at his
post, with no very agreeable expression on his face. The Frenchman and the
Englishman had evidently not got on well together so far. Francis Raven
lay helpless on his bed, waiting silently for two in the morning and the
Dream Woman.

"I have come, Francis, to bid you good night," I said, cheerfully.
"To-morrow morning I shall look in at breakfast time, before I leave home
on a journey."

"Thank you for all your kindness, sir. You will not see me alive to-morrow
morning. She will find me this time. Mark my words--she will find me this
time."

"My good fellow! she couldn't find you in England. How in the world is she
to find you in France?"

"It's borne in on my mind, sir, that she will find me here. At two in the
morning on