midnight
And it was now , when the fret of the day had worn down , that Hugh Ritson thought of all that he had left behind him in the distant north . There in the darkness and the silence , amid the mountains , by the waving trees and the rumbling ghylls , lay half the ruins of his ruined life . The glow of old London 's many lights could not reach so far , but the shadow of that dark spot was here . The clocks struck midnight , and he returned to the hotel at which he had engaged a bed . He did not lie down to sleep , but walked to and fro the night through . Next morning at ten he was at the Home Office again . He saw the secretary and some of the law officers of the Crown .