midnight
-- till , as she clung to his inert body , madly determining not to let it go , she fell , -- fast grappling her betrayer 's corpse , -- into the ominous stillness of the river . The flood opened , as it were , to receive the two , -- the dead and the living -- there was a slight ripple as though a mouth in the water smiled -- then the usual calm surface reflected the moon once more , and there was no sign of trouble . Nothing struggled , -- nothing floated , -- all was perfectly tranquil . The bells chimed from all the churches in the city a quarter to midnight , and their pretty echoes were wafted across the water , -- no other sound disturbed the silence , -- not a trace of the struggle was left , save just one smeared track of grass and slime , which , if examined carefully , might have been found sprinkled with blood . But with the morning the earth would have swallowed those drops of human life as silently as the river-quicksand had sucked down the bodies of the betrayed and the betrayer ; -- in neither case would Nature have any hint to give of the tragedy enacted . Nature is a dumb witness to many dramas , -- and it may be that she has eyes and ears and her own way of keeping records . Sometimes she gives up long-buried secrets , sometimes she holds them fast ; -- biding her time until the Judgment Day , when not only the crime shall be disclosed but the Cause of the crime 's committal .