midnight
`` Stay you here , Elvira , '' said Léon , `` lest I should miss him by the way . If , when I return , I find you here no longer , I shall follow at once to the Black Head . '' And he set out to find the Maire 's . It took him some ten minutes wandering among blind lanes , and when he arrived it was already half-an-hour past midnight . A long white garden wall overhung by some thick chestnuts , a door with a letter-box , and an iron bell-pull , that was all that could be seen of the Maire 's domicile . Léon took the bell-pull in both hands , and danced furiously upon the side-walk . The bell itself was just upon the other side of the wall , it responded to his activity , and scattered an alarming clangour far and wide into the night .