midnight
`` Wo n't you consider what I suggested , '' asked Roberts in a low tone ; `` merely consider it ? '' `` Perhaps after you tell me what you meant . Why ` do n't , ' please ? '' On the cosy room fell silence , -- the silence of midnight ; the longest silence of that interrupted understanding . For a long while Roberts stood precisely as he was ; he started walking , measuring the breadth of the room and back again ; something the watcher had never known him to do before , never in the years of acquaintance , no matter what the uncertainty or difficulty confronting . A second time he followed the trail back and forth , until , watching him , the spectator felt at last something like terror of the thing he had deliberately conjured and that now was inevitably coming very near ; for at last Roberts had halted , was standing over him . `` In all the time that I 've known you , Armstrong , '' said a voice , a new voice , `` you 've asked my advice repeatedly , asked the reason for it , insisted that I explain minutely , and disregarded it absolutely .