midnight
The snow , coming without noise , each flake so light and tiny none can mark the spot whereon it settles , yet the mass of it able to smother whole villages , wove through the very texture of his mind -- cold , bewildering , deadening effort with its clinging network of ten million feathery touches . In the morning Hibbert realised he had done , perhaps , a foolish thing . The brilliant sunshine that drenched the valley made him see this , and the sight of his work-table with its typewriter , books , papers , and the rest , brought additional conviction . To have skated with a girl alone at midnight , no matter how innocently the thing had come about , was unwise -- unfair , especially to her . Gossip in these little winter resorts was worse than in a provincial town . He hoped no one had seen them . Luckily the night had been dark .