nearly midnight
`` You 'll order apartments in the hotel , nurse . See that every thing is right and comfortable for Mrs. Bruce . I shall bring them back at once , if I can , '' was his last word as he drove off , alone with Malcolm : he wished to have no one with him who could possibly be done without . It was nearly midnight when they stood at the foot of the high stair -- six stories high -- and Captain Bruce , they learned , was inhabiting the topmost flat . Malcolm looked at the earl uneasily . `` The top flat ! Miss Helen canna be vera well aff , I doubt .