I had a dream as I took mine ease in mine inn on this occasion. I fancied myself in a huge cathedral, without light, except from four tapers that stood at the corners of a raised platform hung with black, on which lay, draped also in black, what seemed to me the dead body of the Countess de St. Alyre. The place seemed empty, it was cold, and I could see only (in the halo of the candles) a little way round. The little I saw bore the character of Gothic gloom, and helped my fancy to shape and furnish the black void that yawned all round me. I heard a sound like the slow tread of two persons walking up the flagged aisle. A faint echo told of the vastness of the place. An awful sense of expectation was upon me, and I was horribly frightened when the body that lay on the catafalque said (without stirring), in a whisper that froze me, "They come to place me in the grave alive; save me." I found that I could neither speak nor move. I was horribly frightened. The two people who approached now emerged from the darkness. One, the Count de St. Alyre glided to the head of the figure and placed his long thin hands under it. The white-faced Colonel, with the scar across his face, and a look of infernal triumph, placed his hands under her feet, and they began to raise her. With an indescribable effort I broke the spell that bound me, and started to my feet with a gasp. I was wide awake, but the broad, wicked face of Colonel Gaillarde was staring, white as death, at me, from the other side of the hearth. "Where is she?" I shuddered. "That depends on who she is, Monsieur," replied the Colonel, curtly. "Good heavens!" I gasped, looking about me. The Colonel, who was eyeing me sarcastically, had had his _demi-tasse_ of _café noir_, and now drank his _tasse_, diffusing a pleasant perfume of brandy. "I fell asleep and was dreaming," I said, least any strong language, founded on the _rôle_ he played in my dream, should have escaped me. "I did not know for some moments where I was." "You are the young gentleman who has the apartments over the Count and Countess de St. Alyre?" he said, winking one eye, close in meditation, and glaring at me with the other. "I believe so--yes," I answered. "Well, younker, take care you have not worse dreams than that some night," he said, enigmatically, and wagged his head with a chuckle. "Worse dreams," he repeated. "What does Monsieur the Colonel mean?" I inquired.