eleven o'clock at night
And , like her , like Gaston Sauverand and so many others , he in his turn was the victim of this monstrous horror . An incident occurred to increase his dismay . All of a sudden his electric lantern , which he had left alight to dispel the terrors of the darkness , went out . It was eleven o'clock at night . He was overcome with a fit of giddiness . He could hardly breathe in the close and vitiated air . His brain suffered , as it were , a physical and exceedingly painful ailment , from the repetition of images that seemed to encrust themselves there ; and it was always Florence 's beautiful features or Marie 's livid face .