nearly midnight
For a moment his face softened until his own preoccupations faded out of it . `` Nobody knew how big she was -- except me , '' Robert Ferguson said . Then he began to talk about her ... . It was nearly midnight when he ended ; when he did , it was with an outburst of pain and grief : `` Nobody understood her . They thought because she ran an iron-works , that she was n't -- a woman . I tell you she was ! I tell you her heart was a woman 's heart .