midnight
Kent marked them down one by one : the governor ; Hendricks , the secretary of State ; Rumford , the oil man ; and Senator Duvall . For five pregnant minutes he stood looking on , almost within arm 's reach of the four ; hearing distinctly what was said ; seeing the papers which changed hands across the table . Then he turned and went away , noiselessly as he had come , the thick-piled carpet of the anteroom muffling his footfalls . It was midnight when he reached his quarters in the Clarendon and flung himself full length upon the bed , sodden with weariness . For two hours he had tramped the deserted streets , striving in sharp travail of soul to fit the invincible , chance-given weapon to his hand . When he came in the thing was done , and he slept the sleep of an outworn laborer . For six days after the night of revelations Kent dived deep , personally and by paid proxy , in a sea of secrecy which , but for the five pregnant minutes in the doorway of the governor 's office , might easily have proved fathomless .