midnight
She had yet to learn the cause ; she had yet to know that Michael had drifted beyond the reach of all further mental suffering whatsoever . No religious anxieties , no mundane trials , none of the million lesser carking troubles that fret the sane brain and stamp care on the face of conscious intelligence would plague him more . Henceforth he was dead to the changes and chances of human life . At midnight there came the awful waking . Thomasin slept at last and slumbered dream-tossed in a shadow-world of fantastic troubles . Then a sound roused her -- the sound of a voice speaking loudly , breaking off to laugh , and speaking again . The voice she knew , but the laugh she had never heard .