midnight
And he remembered how little he then knew that about this white host hung the red host of those camp-followers , who beleaguer in outer darkness every army of men . Then had followed warfare , double warfare : the ardent attack on work and study ; athletic play , good fellowship , visits late at night to the chambers of new friends -- chambers rich in furniture and pictures , friends richer in old names and fine manners and beautiful boyish gallant ways ; his club and his secret society , and the whole bewildering maddening enchantment of student life , where work and duty and lights and wine and poverty and want and flesh and spirit strive together each for its own . At this point he put these memories away , locked them from himself in their long silence . Near midnight he made his way quietly back into the main hall . He turned out the lamps and lighted his bedroom candle and started toward the stairway , holding it in front of him a little above his head , a low-moving star through the gloom . As he passed between two portraits , he paused with sudden impulse and , going over to one , held his candle up before the face and studied it once more . A man , black-browed , black-robed , black-bearded , looked down into his eyes as one who had authority to speak .