midnight
It was inevitable that she should think of suicide ; for she could not suppose that any girl had ever got herself into a plight more desperate than hers . `` I could slip out at night and drown myself , '' she thought seriously . `` A nice thing that would be for Gerald ! '' Then loneliness , like a black midnight , overwhelmed her , swiftly wasting her strength , disintegrating her pride in its horrid flood . She glanced about for support , as a woman in the open street who feels she is going to faint , and went blindly to the bed , falling on it with the upper part of her body , in an attitude of abandonment . She wept , but without sobbing . Gerald Scales walked about the Strand , staring up at its high narrow houses , crushed one against another as though they had been packed , unsorted , by a packer who thought of nothing but economy of space .