midnight
Alas ! Alas ! Though he saw it not , death entered with them . At midnight there was the old , old cry of despair and anguish , the hurrying for help , where no help was of avail , the desolation of a terror creeping hour by hour closer to the hearthstone . The laird was stricken with a stony grief which was deaf to all consolation . He wandered up and down wringing his hands , and crying out at intervals like a man in mortal agony . Helen lay in a stupor while the fever burned her young life away .