midnight
The damp night air of April filled the place , and crept through our evening-clothes and light overcoats into the very marrow ; the mental torture of the situation was renewed and multiplied in my brain ; and all the time one 's ears were pricked for footsteps on the path between the rhododendrons . The only sounds we could at first identify came one and all from the stables . Yet there the excitement subsided sooner than we had expected , and it was Raffles himself who breathed a doubt as to whether they were turning out the hunters after all . On the other hand , we heard wheels in the drive not long after midnight ; and Raffles , who was beginning to scout among the shrubberies , stole back to tell me that the guests were departing , and being sped , with an unimpaired conviviality which he failed to understand . I said I could not understand it either , but suggested the general influence of liquor , and expressed my envy of their state . I had drawn my knees up to my chin , on the bench where one used to dry one 's self after bathing , and there I sat in a seeming stolidity at utter variance with my inward temper . I heard Raffles creep forth again and I let him go without a word .