midnight
They kissed each other for the last time , and Mrs Collenwood stood listening to the slow , heavy step which passed up the stairs and into the bedroom overhead . When Mr Roberts had shut and barred his door , she took up the key , and with a sigh which had reference rather to his future than to her present , went to seek Pandora . Their little packages of immediate necessaries were soon made up . When the clock struck midnight -- an hour at which in 1557 everybody was in bed -- two well cloaked and hooded women crept out of the low-silled window of the dinning-room , and made their silent and solitary way through the shrubs of the pleasure-ground to the little wicket-gate which opened on the Goudhurst road . Mrs Collenwood unlocked the little wicket , and let herself and Pandora out into the public road . Then she relocked the gate , and after a moment 's thought , feeling in the darkness , she hung the key on a bush close to the gate , where it could not be seen from the road . Both ladies carried lanterns , for the omission of this custom would have raised more suspicion than its observance , had they been met by any one , and there were no public street lamps in those days .