midnight
He glanced with frowning intentness at the big office clock above the burning gas-jet , and then looked lingeringly about the bank -- lingeringly and fondly , Uncle Bushrod thought , as one who bids farewell to dear and familiar scenes . Now he caught up his burden again and moved promptly and softly out of the bank by the way he had come locking the front door behind him . For a minute or longer Uncle Bushrod was as stone in his tracks . Had that midnight rifler of safes and vaults been any other on earth than the man he was , the old retainer would have rushed upon him and struck to save the Weymouth property . But now the watcher 's soul was tortured by the poignant dread of something worse than mere robbery . He was seized by an accusing terror that said the Weymouth name and the Weymouth honour were about to be lost . Marse Robert robbing the bank !