midnight
He had done double his usual amount of work and had finished his duties earlier than usual . To avoid thinking after he sent Berene away , he had turned to his desk and plunged into his labour with feverish intensity . He wrote a particularly savage editorial on the matter of over-immigration , and his leaders on political questions of the day were all tinctured with a bitterness and sarcasm quite new to his pen . At midnight that pen dropped from his nerveless hand , and he made his way toward the Palace in a most unenviable state of mind and body . Yet he believed he had done the right thing both in engaging himself to Miss Lawrence and in discharging Berene . Her constant presence about the office was of all things the most undesirable in his new position . `` But I might have done it in a decent manner if I had not lost all control of myself , '' he said as he walked home .