midnight
`` Thet 's so , '' responded his companion , and shook his hand . They parted . A gust of wind swept through the pines , and struck a faint Aeolian cry from the wires above their heads ; and the rain and the darkness again slowly settled upon Cottonwood . The message lagged a little at San Francisco , laid over half an hour at Chicago , and fought longitude the whole way ; so that it was past midnight when the `` all night '' operator took it from the wires at Boston . But it was freighted with a mandate from the San Francisco office ; and a messenger was procured , who sped with it through dark snow-bound streets , between the high walls of close-shuttered rayless houses , to a certain formal square ghostly with snow-covered statues . Here he ascended the broad steps of a reserved and solid-looking mansion , and pulled a bronze bell-knob , that somewhere within those chaste recesses , after an apparent reflective pause , coldly communicated the fact that a stranger was waiting without -- as he ought . Despite the lateness of the hour , there was a slight glow from the windows , clearly not enough to warm the messenger with indications of a festivity within , but yet bespeaking , as it were , some prolonged though subdued excitement .