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 my birthday I shall see her again, and see her for the last time.”

“Do you mean that she will kill you?”

“I mean that, sir, she will kill me—­with the knife.”

“And with Rigobert in the room to protect you?”

“I am a doomed man.  Fifty Rigoberts couldn’t protect me.”

“And you wanted somebody to sit up with you?”

“Mere weakness, sir.  I don’t like to be left alone on my deathbed.”

I looked at the surgeon.  If he had encouraged me, I should certainly, out of sheer compassion, have confessed to Francis Raven the trick that we were playing him.  The surgeon held to his experiment; the surgeon’s face plainly said—­“No.”