midnight
He opened the volume where he had left off , with Lovelace 's letter after he had spent the night waiting fruitlessly in the copse . `` Good God ! `` What is now to become of me ? `` My feet benumbed by midnight wanderings through the heaviest dews that ever fell ; my wig and my linen dripping with the hoarfrost dissolving on them ! `` Day but just breaking ... '' etc. . While he read he was conscious of holding her attention , then after a few pages the story claimed all his , so that he read on for about half-an-hour without looking at her . When he did so he saw that she was not listening to him , but was watching something with strange eagerness .