midnight
I followed him , but I seemed to be following a ghost ; for in the tangle of streets and lanes , he was lost to me . I spent two full hours hunting this shade ; but had it been actually a ghost it could not have disappeared more completely . I went to Count Saxe 's quarters . It was then near midnight , and Count Saxe had gone to bed ; but on the table , wide open , with some other letters for me to read , was a letter from Gaston Cheverny to Count Saxe , dated the very day before the capture of Prague . So I was deceived . He was not and never had been in Prague . I had been deceived by some chance resemblance .