midnight
A miss was as good as a mile in slipping between the cup and the lip . But the course of true love is a rugged path to the close of the ceremony ; beyond , it is still more rugged , and the surrounding country , they say , is often wild and desolate , and quite unlike the park gardening and its beckoning vistas to be seen along Lovers ' Lane before the turn in the road at the altar . A cloud no larger than the tiny mist from the whistle of one of those tooting tugs familiar in the harbor scene was gathering while the sun shone so brightly in the tower apartment . An electric shock will gather and burst a cloud large enough to bring midnight and deluge at noonday . Mr. Gibson understood the importance of lightning arresters , but was not prepared to apply them in his home . The women could do nothing ; and , of course , I , the only person in the world who might have transformed the current to a harmless voltage , had been shunned as an enemy . Then came the lull before the hurricane -- the soft whispering of the wind in the tree-tops .